The Music Box
by Eliot Rosewater
Summary: There is red in her ledger and ghosts on her heels: The Black Widow pulls a long con in a terrorist organization. Collateral damage is inevitable.
1. Overture

Natalia Romanova — also known as Natasha Romanoff, also known as Natalie Rushman, also known as Nadine Roman, also known as Laura Matthers, also known as Oktober, also known as Tsarina and countless other names — walks among the ruins of what was once a vast mansion. This husk of a home still smolders. If she were someone else, she might be admiring her work. But Natalia Romanova is not a vain woman. What she is, however, is thorough.

If anyone happened to be walking by, they might think she looks out of place in the wreckage. The destroyed infrastructure is blackened beyond recognition. All the decadent stories that existed above the foundation have been blasted away. The remains are littered across the vast grounds. But Natalia Romanova has not a single hair out of place. Her clothes are pristine and free of even the smallest smudge of ash. She likes to think that she has never seen anything so completely destroyed, but she knows that it is not true.

Natalia Romanova is the reason that this house has been reduced to rubble. She arranged for the explosive charges to be planted in the mansion she spent the last year working in. For the most part, she is unaffected by the ruined house. This is what makes her an excellent agent. This is why she has obtained the rank she has. That and the ability to act. Natalia Romanova is an excellent actress. She is one of the best sleeper agents available for hire.

As she moves among the smoldering debris, she kicks over the lifeless bodies that litter the ground. One takes a shuttering breath, probably his last. Natalia Romanova un-holsters one of her handguns and shoots him in the back of the head all in one motion. She has to be sure. With another kick that rolls the body onto its side, she moves on with her firearm still out. There may be more.

Natalia Romanova counts twenty-seven bodies. That accounts for more than the required targets. Bonuses. She shoots four that twitch to ensure that they're completely dead. It wouldn't do for anyone to make it out of the blast. Natalia Romanova has accepted long ago that ghosts will follow her. She can — and has — dealt with that thus far. She does not fear what she has done. If any of this stained her conscience, Natalia Romanova wouldn't do it. All that she has done has always been her choice. Sure, some may point out that decisions were made under duress or were coerced out of her. But in the end it was always Natalia Romanova's choice. She can endure being haunted because she chose to be that way. Ghosts may leave this burning grave with her but living bodies cannot.

Part of the second landing still exists. It is not safe to climb the part of the staircase that has not yet crumbled, but Natalia Romanova has never lived by what is safe. She takes the stairs with steps as light as kisses. It is the north end of the house that still stands. It was a miscalculation on the engineer's part. Or it was a simple wiring problem that could not be avoided. In any case, the very end of the north wing is not completely collapsed. The house is made of brick; it would not have burned down. The misfire is harmless since all the targets were neutralized. Natalia Romanova makes a mental note to berate the engineer anyway. It _could_ have been important that this end of the mansion come down.

As she moves down the blackened hallway, she hears a tinkling sound. It is the tinny song from a music box. Natalia Romanova knows immediately what it means. The door to a bedroom has been blown off or burned away — she doesn't know which and doesn't care to find out. She stops in the block of sunlight that shines into the burned hallway through the doorway and looks into the bedroom.

The furniture looks like it was put in a massive box and shaken up by a giant. The frame of the bed is broken and tossed about. Glass from the bay window glitters on the dirtied carpet. The drawers have been ripped from the dressing table and lie dismantled among the rest of the debris. The ceiling had been torn clear off. It is snowing into the bedroom. Natalia Romanova follows the sound of the music box into the room as if it is a siren's song. She kneels down beside the remnants of the dressing table and pushes aside broken glass, ruined dolls, and charred bits of the wall.

When she can see it, Natalia Romanova lifts the singing music box out of the wreckage. Miraculously, the tiny carving of the ballerina still turns on her platform within the box. It was pink once but is now black with burns and ashes. She closes the box, cutting off the song. It is only after she does this that she hears it. Someone is crying. Natalia Romanova turns toward the sound.

On the other side of the gutted mattress, the body of a little girl lies. Natalia Romanova halts when she sees that the child is still alive. The girl is pinned beneath debris, but Natalia Romanova can tell that the girl's legs are bleeding and mangled. The little girl's fingers are trembling on the carpet that her blood has already stained. Her body is beyond broken, but she still lives and she still cries. She rolls her broken face toward Natalia Romanova, and she smiles as if an angel has arrived to carry her away from this place.

"Natuska," the girl says, choking on the word. She takes a pained breath, perhaps to say more, but she is cut off by the discharge of a firearm. The little girl's eyes go dull.

Natalia Romanova lowers her handgun, and takes a breath. She tosses the music box that is in her hand back into the pile of rubble. Turning on her heel, she exits the bedroom, thinking that the engineer will be slaughtered for his inability to collapse the entire mansion.

Natalia Romanova — also known as Natuska Shostakova — is haunted by another ghost.


	2. The Sleeping Beauty

_February - Twelve Months Earlier_

"We're glad to have you on board," he says to Natuska Shostakova.

"I can't think of anywhere I'd rather be," she says.

The man is Ilya Nemchinov and he is the ringleader of an illegal weapons manufacturing group. Natuska Shostakova is a mask worn by Natalia Romanova. She has been in place for a few months and has now finally secured a position at Nemchinov's side. From now on she will gather information and dig as deeply as she can into his operation. Natalia Romanova will be Natuska Shostakova until such a time that there is no more information to be gained from Nemchinov's group. Then she will orchestrate a tragedy that will decimate the operation. A man assembling explosives is bound to have an accident.

Nemchinov is a young man, considering that he runs a powerful terrorist group. He does not see his group or their intentions in line with the word 'terrorist.' Natalia Romanova doesn't care what he considers himself to be nor what good he thinks his actions bring. It is not her place to be concerned with such things. They say infiltrate his club, so she does. They say bring the operation burning to the ground, so she will. There is nothing else to it. She will act and lie and rain death upon at least fifteen people.

Ilya Nemchinov shows her around his grounds. He has the gall to hold the assembly of weapons inside his very own mansion. Granted the assembly area is twenty feet below the house's foundation. Still. He runs a terrorist group out of his very house. None of this he tells her outright. She is not, after all, supposed to know that he is the leader of a terrorist group. Her current front is that of a domestic servant. An oblivious assistant.

Nemchinov introduces her to all the important men that oversee and package the weapons he deals in the assembly room. Again, he does not say this. He does not need to. She knows that there is no other reason for so many other men to be wandering about his house. More than that, at least some of this information was provided to her before the mission was assigned. She gathered the identities of most of the gun-runners before the position as Ilya Nemchinov's assistant was officially awarded to her. Nemchinov shows her everything but the plant that lives beneath his golden mansion.

Natuska smiles and says hello. But Natalia Romanova remembers every face and discreetly collects the fingerprints of every single man with whom she shakes hands. Natalia has the technological backing of the agency she was hired at. Nemchinov may make weapons, but things far more terrifying than explosives have threatened Natalia Romanova.

She has domestic duties. Natalia doesn't think this is a bad thing. She will have around-the-clock access to his mansion. Countless opportunities to dig out every last morsel of information. Should something need to be cleaned, Natuska provides Natalia with countless excuses as to why she is wandering the mansion. Perhaps she is lost. Perhaps she is trying to find a particular sheaf of papers for Nemchinov. Her best excuses? They all involve little Inga Nemchinova, Ilya's daughter. For it is the little girl that Natuska is supposed to attend while Natalia unearths terrorist secrets.

_Do not mind the redheaded woman, she is merely playing hide-and-seek with little Inga._

Nemchinov leaves Natuska to settle into her room. Natalia is not surprised to see that it is significantly less extravagant than the rest of the house. After all, she is the help. As soon as she is assured that she is alone, Natalia tactfully sweeps the room for bugs and cameras. She finds several. Knowing that she cannot break them, she turns them to face another direction or interferes with their signal. She leaves a few untampered. It would not do to have Nemchinov's security team know that she knows she is being spied upon. Her cover would be shot to hell. Her biggest concern is to find each device's frequency and send them back to her parent company. After there is enough data, they will be able to looped pre-recorded footage into the feed. She will live with Nemchinov's eyes on her for only a short while.

Once the surveillance is dealt with, Natalia unpacks Natuska's costume. It is modest. The biggest unknown in this plan is the daughter. Not enough information could be gathered on her since Nemchinov keeps her so well guarded. Terrorist though he may be, he cared deeply for his daughter. So Natalia didn't know what sort of temperament the child had. She would work with the child no matter what, but it would make the job so much easier if the girl liked Natuska. Natalia didn't give two shits whether the girl liked her as long as Inga did as Natuska said.

At the appropriate time, Natuska tells Ilya Nemchinov that she is going to pick up the girl from her dance class. Natalia stands outside of the studio in the small town near which the Nemchinov family lives. The doors come open and several little girls and a few boys spill out onto the walk. Natalia waves to the little girl she recognizes from pictures hung on Ilya's walls and has her Natuska mask smile warmly.

"You must be Inga. Your father's just hired me to help out with you. I'm Natuska," Natalia says.

"Hello, Natuska," the girl says shyly.

On the way back to the mansion, Natalia asks Inga friendly questions. They are vague on the surface, nothing too personal. They are merely strangers on their way to becoming friends. If Natalia wants the freedom to explore Nemchinov's weapons plant of a house, she will need Inga's trust. The girl likes to talk. She must be lonely in that house all on her own. The thought of someone new always being around — being around for _her_ sake — both excites and scares her. Inga wants company, she says, but she is not sure how to act around people. She had seldom been anyone's center of attention.

"What do you like to do in your spare time?" Natalia asks pleasantly.

Inga shrugs. "Sometimes I sing. Papa had a man teach me the piano and the cello. I play sometimes."

Just a young girl — eleven, if Natalia's memory serves — and accomplished with two instruments. She had seen the awards in Nemchinov's home already, but did not know that they belonged to the girl. Inga was positively a virtuoso.

The girl leaned toward Natalia with youthful happiness on her face. "But do you know what I want more than anything?"

Natalia did not.

"I want to be a ballerina. They fly, don't they, Natuska? Have you ever been to the ballet?"

Natalia nods her head. "I used to dance myself."

Inga eyes went wide. "Where?"

For a brief moment Natalia considers lying. But she convinces herself that the truth would be harmless. After all, she was building trust with this girl. Trust went hand in hand with truth. Never mind that absolutely everything about the person Natalia was presenting to little Inga was a lie. She would let Natuska tell Inga this one truth.

"I studied with the Bolshoi Ballet for a bit," Natalia says.

"Truly, Natuska?" she breathes. "You must be a beautiful dancer! You must dance for me! Will you show me? Will you teach me how to dance like a Bolshoi ballerina? Please, Natuska."

For a single moment, Natalia sees in Inga Nemchinova's eyes someone that she used to know. It is gone in a blink of the little girl's eyes.

"Do you think I could be a Bolshoi dancer like you?"

Natalia thinks that Inga Nemchinova is not a pretty girl. She knows that the child must be picked on mercilessly for it. Inga's face is round, her eyes closely and deeply set. Though she has a chin, her jaw seems not to exist; her cheeks flowing right down into a neck. Natalia smiles at the girl. She has a beautiful neck. From the seats of a theatre no one would be able to see her face that well. They would see nothing but the heavy stage makeup. But they would be able to see the long and graceful line of her neck.

Natalia says, "If you work very hard and love ballet very much, you will dance in any company you wish."

The most innocently pleased look shines through Inga's round face. She looks for all the world as though no one would ever say something so nice about her again. Natalia would have felt guilt for lying to the girl if she cared. But the only regard Natalia has for the Nemchinov girl is for what she represents. Inga is both a cover and an obstacle.

A week later, Inga's classmates have made fun of her in class. She cries messily on Natuska while Natalia is annoyed. Ilya Nemchinov becomes concerned and buys his daughter comfort because he does not know how to offer it organically. Nemchinov sends Natuska and Inga to see _The Sleeping Beauty_ in the city the next night. He cannot go with them because he has to go out of town. Natuska and Inga should go out too, he says. They do and have a wonderful time.

Natalia is not fooled.

That night after she returns to the mansion and sends Inga off to bed, Natalia leaves all traces of Natuska behind her as if the front is some tangible thing that may be picked up and placed somewhere else. Natalia scours the mansion. Quiet as the night, Natalia breaks into Ilya Nemchinov's study. She finds trick doors and heavy security. The security is easily dealt with; her presence erased. Her prize is found in the form of shipping schedules. Natalia takes down all the information and sends it back to her employer.

The next objective is to monitor these shipping entries and find out who the suppliers are. But that is for another night.

In the morning, Ilya Nemchinov returns to his mansion to find Natuska teaching his little girl how to sew ribbons into her pointe shoes.


	3. Afternoon of a Faun

_March - Eleven Months Earlier_

Nemchinov has an exchange upcoming. Natalia has much to do. The most important is to rid herself of the responsibility of Inga. This is easy. After helping the girl get used to turning _en pointe_, Natuska talks about a four-day camp for dancers new to pointe work (which just so happens to land on the same spot in the calendar as the pending weapons exchange). Little Inga Nemchinova does the rest; she finds the program through whatever channel children her age use to find the information they desire. She pesters her father into letting her go. Nemchinov has his reservations. He does not like his daughter out of his reach. Privately, Natalia does not understand Nemchinov's tendency to keep his daughter so close. Does he prefer to ignore her only when she is in close proximity?

Natalia reminds herself that she doesn't care.

In the end, Ilya Nemchinov proves to be easily swayed. He bows to his daughter batting her eyelashes and calling him 'daddy.' Natalia wonders if the girl is not cleverer than she appears. Inga is delighted to go. She asks Natuska to help her improve her technique. The purpose of Natuska's employment is not to teach Inga dance, but Natalia does as the girl asks. Natalia notices that Inga has relatively weak ankles for a girl starting pointe work. She could break an ankle without proper strength. Natalia says nothing. It will be easier to go about her work if the girl is immobilized with an injury.

Nemchinov sees his daughter off on the day she leaves for the sleep-away dance camp. He repeatedly tells Inga that he loves her as though he never expects to see her again — as if he has something to prove. The girl is just old enough to realize that this is embarrassing behavior.

Ilya Nemchinov says to Natuska after he has temporarily let Inga fly the nest, "It is a dangerous thing having children, you know. Wherever she goes she takes my heart."

Natalia scoffs but Natuska smiles at the sentiment. "I hope to experience that kind of love for myself one day," she lies.

"That is the only kind of love there is, Natuska. No one loves anything but the little bodies they pour their heart into. Love is for our children and no one else."

_How vulnerable he makes himself_, Natalia thinks. Her whole mission could be cut short if she simply abducted Inga Nemchinova. Ilya Nemchinov would barter for her return; he would offer himself in exchange for his daughter's release. Then she could simply force all the answers they need out of the man.

Perhaps it is better to do it the way Natalia has been hired to. She can be quieter than kidnapping. There would be a limit to what Nemchinov could provide. Natalia is meant to find out more than what only Nemchinov knows. Torturing information from him could bring down his manufacturing plant. Infiltrating a link in the chain such as Natalia has done will bring down the suppliers, the assembly, and the buyers. In short, she may erase an entire institution from the record of history.

Nemchinov tells Natuska that he has to go away on business, which is not a lie. She will have a few days off. He tells her that he expects to return around the same time as Inga and that he will pick up his daughter on the fourth day. He wishes she enjoys her break. As soon as he is gone, Natuska is tucked away in storage. Natalia — free from prying eyes — makes it her mission to explore the assembly plant. The exchange which Nemchinov has gone off to make is with the "true terrorists." That is, the ones that will physically attack their target. There is more than one group for which Nemchinov provides weapons. This particular exchange is with a rather large partner. Nemchinov has taken most of his men with him. Patrols of the manufacturing facility below the house will be at a minimum. There is also video surveillance, but that is child's play for Natalia Romanova.

She descends to the "hidden" facility through the elevator shaft, forgoing the actual device. Had she used it, what little staff that is remaining would become suspicious. There is no door at the bottom of the elevator shaft. It opens directly into the corridors. They are dingy and stony — more reminiscent of a cellar than a weapons plant. But she is familiar with fronts. Things are hardly ever what they appear, Natalia most of all.

Pausing to listen, she counts the footsteps in the corridor. They echo in the absence of company. Natalia counts.

_One, two, three, four, five, six._

She steps into the hall and heads in the opposite direction of that which the footsteps are traveling. The layout of the plant is not well-known to her, but Natalia has gone on missions with less intel than what she has now. Nemchinov, by and large, is not a terribly smart or complicated man. This will not be difficult to figure out.

Based on the patterns she's been observing during her time in the mansion, there will be no more than six people prowling the halls between the elevator and the actual assembly room. She passes four without problem in the corridors. Though they are long and bare of any place to hide, the halls also let sounds travel quite easily. She can hear when one of the "guards" approaches before they even decided to turn around. These men are the newest recruits to Nemchinov's operation. They are still on probation. None are trusted enough yet to go on an exchange. They have not committed any murders with the very weapons they are in charge of guarding right now — the initiation.

Natalia almost wishes she could have infiltrated Nemchinov's club as a recruit. It would almost be too easy to achieve what she must sneak around doing now.

Before long, she locates the door to the assembly area. Locked, of course. She picks the simple lock carefully enough. As for the device demanding she identify herself? Well, there was a reason that she collected all of those men's fingerprints when Nemchinov first introduced her to them.

The door does not open quietly. Luck is with her. The two men standing guard over the area are in a lofted overseer's box above the floor. The assembly plant is a positive factory. It is a huge room, cleaner and more sophisticated than the corridors she's traveled through to find it. The ceilings are almost as high as those in the ornate building above them. Mostly, it is empty of weapons. They are out with the rest of the members, exchanging hands. Explosives for money. The money will come back here and be paid in part to the supplier. The pieces of equipment in need of attention are stacked in oil drums — a disguise. Every link in this chain knows that the end result is slaughter, but none of them care much. If anything, they support it.

Keeping an eye on the men in the glass box overhead, Natalia makes her way across the big, empty floor toward the oil drums. If the men would only turn around, they would see her. But their attention is fully focused on their drinks and game of cards. If she is quiet, Natalia can hear their wits leaving them.

She carefully pops the lid off one of the drums. Removing the false bottom, she finds mere pieces of semi-automatic weapons; the eggs that will be incubated and modified and pushed from the nest as abominations. Natalia takes ammunition from three magazines from different levels in the drum, replacing the ones she takes with dummy rounds. The replacements do not much resemble the rounds she takes, but it will do for now. Natalia repeats this process with four other barrels that are not near to each other.

There are no other containers on the assembly floor. She did not expect there to be much. All the material that Nemchinov had was sent off with all the men to be sold. None of the heavy stuff, the bomb-makers, or the illicit chemicals are here. A container of perfectly legally-obtainable acid sits on a counter lining one of the walls. She takes a sample of that as well. There are ingredients for amateur weapons. Why anyone would buy Molotov cocktails like this is anyone's guess. If anyone wanted an improvised incendiary device that badly, surely they could make something as pedestrian as a poor man's grenade on their own.

In her inspection, she finds cleverly disguised samples of white phosphorous. Not for the first time, Natalia sees the value of wearing gloves. She collects a specimen of the substance and puts it with the rest. Investigating further, she finds white phosphorous mortar rounds. _Terror_ _indeed,_ she thinks. Knowing that taking one of these would be incredibly stupid, Natalia takes the time to memorize every single mark on the rounds that may give her some clue as to who provided Nemchinov with it.

Already she is planning for another excuse that would get her down here to investigate.

One of the men drinking — and evidently losing a card game — nearly spots her. Natalia presses herself to the side of the counter and thanks humanity for its affinity for alcohol. She has done enough for now. Escaping the dingy corridors is nearly as easy as infiltrating them. Echoes warn her of anyone's advance. Stepping into the hole where an elevator door should be, Natalia scales the pit. She revels in the exertion.

On the second day that the Nemchinov family is away, Natuska tells the men outside ("security") that she is going to visit her sister in the city, and she will see them tomorrow night. While the silly nanny does that, Natalia hand-delivers her samples to her employer. They analyze the samples without further delay. By the time Natalia returns to the Nemchinov property on the third night, they have been able to identify a supplier of the small arms. The ammunition is distinctive and traceable — they were sloppy and hasty in trying to fulfill Nemchinov's order. That supplier will be the first in a long line of dominoes to fall.

On the fourth day — the day that father and daughter return — Natuska greets them at the door with smiles and hugs and çäkçäk. Ilya Nemchinov smiles politely and then heads off with his men to their conference room to plan and plot. It is tempting to follow and listen, but Natalia must be Natuska now.

Inga regales Natuska with tales from dance camp. The little girl rolled her ankle more than once, but a lot of others did too. To warm up, they did dances in bare feet. All the dancers' feet were sore from their hardly-broken-in pointe shoes. Her class worked with a boys' group on a basic _pas de deux_. She got to dance a part from _Afternoon of a Faun_ with Oleg Malkin. Inga is in love.


	4. Romeo and Juliet

_April – Ten Months Earlier_

Life with the Nemchinovs is becoming far too familiar. Natalia finds herself stuck in the routine of their life. Inga spends the mornings with her tutors, going over those lessons that are so vital to growing minds. After complaining about the other students that made her cry, Ilya Nemchinov hires his daughter a private dance teacher. They spend all afternoon — _every afternoon _— in the same studio where she used to be a part of a class (despite the fact that there is a perfectly equipped studio in the mansion Inga already lives in). Inga despises her new teacher even more than she hated being teased in class. Natalia wonders how long it will be before Ilya Nemchinov fires the teacher and hires a new victim.

In the evenings, Inga plays the piano and cello for an hour each. Most of these days Natalia wonders why they needed to hire Natuska at all; Inga is occupied all day. Natuska spends most of her time cleaning and doing other mindless domestic tasks. Natalia doesn't mind this very much as it gives her excellent opportunities to snoop around the house and listen outside closed doors.

Often, Oleg Malkin will dance a _pas de deux_ with Inga. He is two years older than her. When Natuska collects the girl from the studio, she talks about him without ever stopping to take a breath. Natalia knows more about the boy than she does about Nemchinov's organization. She knows he has green eyes and the softest hair Inga has ever felt. She knows that Inga thinks they will be married and be principal dancers in a world-renowned company one day. She knows Inga loves how raindrops cling to his hair and the cold makes his cheeks turn pink. At night, Natalia sits on the edge of the bathtub in Inga's private bathroom and shows the girl the best ways to tape up her blistered and raw feet. In exchange for this aid, Inga offers useless information about Oleg.

Inga is seated on the toilet seat now with one of her mangled feet in Natuska's lap. Natalia holds a pin in the flame of a cigarette lighter until it glows. After a few seconds, she clicks off the lighter and waits for the metal to cool.

Inga says, "He said that he's been dancing since he was three. His mother was a dancer when she was younger and really wanted him to do it. She was only ever a part of the _corps de ballet_ for a smallish company. She pushes him so much because she wants him to have all the success she didn't."

"I'm sure he will have it," Natalia says. She doesn't add that it's true because male dancers are so much smaller in number. It's likely that he'll be more successful than his mother simply because he has less competition. Natalia has never really seen Oleg Malkin dance, so she can't say whether he is any good or not.

"I think so, too," says Inga. "He's one of the strongest dancers at the studio. They give him privates because he has so much promise. He doesn't even have to pay anything for them."

"They're making a big investment in him then."

"I know. I hope that dancing with him makes me better. I think it does. He's so good that it makes me work harder."

"I can tell," Natalia says and gestures to Inga's mangled foot in her lap.

Inga looks only a little bit flattered. "I have been trying to make a better effort. But that teacher Father got me is an idiot, Natuska. I don't think he knows what he's doing. He may have been a great dancer, but he certainly isn't a great teacher. Oleg says that my teacher is known for getting students injured."

"Hmm," says Natalia. She gently pokes the cooled pin into the base a huge blister on the side of Inga's foot. It is so big that she cannot walk without pain, not to mention that her foot won't fit into her pointe shoe because of it. Making another hole, Natalia slowly and carefully drains the fluid under the skin.

"We're preparing for a summer program with a _real_ ballet school. The Edel, I think it's called. The auditions are in June. I hope this idiot knows what he's doing, Natuska, because I really want this spot. No more of this poor studio. I'll be able to study in a school that actually has a professional company. Oleg is going to audition. We're working together."

"You'll have to work very hard. Harder than you are now."

"Yes, of course. Duh."

Inga goes unusually quiet. Natalia is grateful and continues to drain the girl's blisters. There are so many. Some had been sheared open before Inga ever took her pointe shoes off. Just like every other dancer.

"Have you ever taught, Natuska?" Inga asks suddenly.

"Taught what?"

"Dance. Ballet."

"No."

"Not even once?"

Natalia finally looks up from the foot that looks so much like hers used to when she was someone else — when she was someone. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, you danced with the Bolshoi."

"I _studied _with the Bolshoi."

"Same thing. You were good enough for them. I was wondering if you could teach me. If I can dance as good as you did for the Bolshoi, then surely I'll be good enough for Edel's summer program."

"I am no teacher, Inga," she says carefully. "It has been a long time since I've danced."

"Come on, Natuska. You're not even old. You can't have stopped dancing _that_ long ago."

Thousands of explanations and excuses run through Natalia's head. _No, I have been doing things much more important than ballet since I left the Bolshoi. I do not want to remember what it was like while I was studying. I do not. I will not. It was not for dance that I am the way I am. I had the best _grand jeté_ because I was training for something much more demanding than mere dancing. I will not tell you how I became this flexible. You do not need to hyperextend your joints until it is not only natural, but comfortable. You do not need to know how to dislocate and reduce your own bones at will._

Natuska smiles. "Your teacher will make sure you are prepared for the audition, Inga."

"If I asked you to, would you dance with me? Would you give me lessons?" There is a challenge in her voice. Inga Nemchinova is reminding Natalia who works for whom. This is a form of battle that Natalia is all too familiar with.

"I don't even have shoes, Inga," she says evasively. For the first time in _years_, Natalia feels something inside her.

"We can get you shoes." She gestures to the grandness of her bathroom. "Money is not an issue, Natuska. Father wouldn't even care. He would rather buy you pointe shoes than pay someone to teach me. He's already paying you anyway."

"Money has nothing to do with it, Inga. I am no teacher."

"Then dance for me. _Any_ dance. I can learn something from watching you. You don't have to say a single word of advice to me."

"I thought you were learning from watching Oleg."

"He's a boy. I can only learn so much from him."

"And there is a lot you can learn from the teacher you already have."

Natalia raises an eyebrow at the girl. Inga smiles back but there is something moving under that mask of youthful curiosity. The girl sighs dramatically.

"Fine, then. At least tell me this, Natuska: What was the last dance you did for the Bolshoi Ballet?"

Inga is asking Natuska, but that _feeling_ inside Natalia moves. Its presence is faint, no more than a memory of pathos. But it is more than anything she has felt since she had a name. A weight settles in her stomach as the words cross her lips. "'The Dying Swan.'"

Inga and Oleg have plans to walk around the city together after rehearsal. Nemchinov asks Natuska to be Inga and Oleg's chaperon for their 'date.' She has to agree, but Natalia knows that he wants her out of the mansion because he is having a meeting about upcoming transactions. Natalia plants a bug on one of the men that she knows will be present for the meeting before Natuska leaves the grounds.

So on Saturday afternoon, Natalia finds herself trailing several steps behind Inga and Oleg as they travel the city. Her hair hides the small transceiver in her ear. Neither of the children pays her any mind, so they don't realize that she isn't paying _them_ any mind either. They are walking alongside a lazy river. Tourists and visitors are some of the only other people there. Mothers hold their children's hands. Sisters on the other side of windows sit at tables laughing over warm drinks. Young people stand with their foreheads touching as they take pictures of themselves in front of the river (Inga did this with Oleg). An old couple sits with their knees touching on a bench. They don't speak, but it looks intimate and private. Natalia looks away from them.

Inga reaches for Oleg's hand, interlocking their fingers. He lets her. Quickly, Inga looks over her shoulder and smiles triumphantly — innocently — back at Natuska. The smile that Natalia offers in return comes organically. As soon as the girl is facing forward again, the levity disappears from Natalia's face.

A voice in her ear buzzes louder than it had been just a moment ago.

"_Kozlov has gone under. Half his crew was seized for having stolen property or some bullshit. He's one of the only ones left, and they're watching him._"

"_How did they even know he was selling? Kozlov is one of the most discreet sellers out there._"

". . . _heard that they were set up at their warehouse just after an import. Partner left, and next thing they know there were sirens everywhere._"

_"A rat?"_

"_Old partner has a beef with him? Did it to get revenge?_"

"_Wherever their leak is, it's not our concern_." Nemchinov. "_What _is_ our concern is fulfilling our orders without getting any authorities involved. They're already suspicious — they're just not looking for us in the right places. If we're going to meet the Synov'ya's demands, we need another supplier. Any suggestions?_"

If Natalia were someone else, she might be smirking at the discord that she's sowed. But she is herself, and she refrains from such obscene displays of emotion. Already Nemchinov is scrambling to fill orders for his partners. She wonders how long she can play with him. The more suppliers he taps, the more people she has the potential to take down. A terrible idea not to investigate how the enigmatic Kozlov was ruined, she thinks. How could Nemchinov not think that whatever force hit one of his suppliers could not also get him? _Idiot man_.

That's one down. The next step for Natalia is to create friction within Nemchinov's ranks, and maybe a little outside of it too.

Oleg chastely kisses Inga at sunset.


	5. The Red Shoes

_May – Nine Months Earlier_

Disaster strikes.

Well, it's only disastrous in one point of view. For Inga, it is a disaster. For Natalia, it is an opportunity. For Nemchinov, it is a nuisance.

It starts when Oleg decides that he doesn't want to dance with Inga anymore. He says that she holds him back. He needs a more advanced partner. For her part, Inga does not cry in front of him. She does not cry in front of anyone. Natalia knows that she is upset but doesn't ask about it. It's none of her business. Whenever she walks with her arms laden with linens outside the girl's room, Natalia can hear Inga sobbing. That weight that's taken up residence in Natalia's stomach always seems to swell when those sounds reach her; as if it's trying to crack her from the inside out. Inga's sobs attack her ears like sharp needles. They hook onto something old and integral that is lodged inside Natalia's chest and try to drag it out of her — out into the light. The more the Nemchinov girl cries, the harder the needles and the weight in Natalia's stomach try to force some vital piece of her out into the open.

If only.

Inga is perfectly blank and stoic when she is not in her room. She robotically does whatever the tutors ask of her. She completes her tasks clinically. Her tutors are impressed with her flawless work. Her father compliments her on her perfect technique as he listens to her go through piano movements at night. All of Nemchinov's men offer her smiles and cheap compliments that they might have paid her when she was six. They offer Natuska compliments that are not paid to six year olds. (Natalia induces this kind of behavior in the recruits on purpose. Flirting with them allows her an excuse to get close to them and plant bugs in their pockets or lift weapons from their hiding places. A particularly important task.)

Inga Nemchinova is naught more than a doll and she is admired indeed.

The only time Inga acts alive is in her dance lessons. The comments about her lacking performance have gotten to her. Oleg might as well have branded 'inferior' on her forehead. She is trying too hard to be better. She spends her nights at the _barre _at home, endless _tendu _exercises. She stretches and reaches, points and flexes, leaps and turns, turns out and rises into _relevé_ over and over again. Natalia sits off to the side during Inga's lessons in the studio. Her teacher _is_ an idiot, Natalia is surprised to find. He does not realize that his student is drowning in herself. He tells her not to force herself into a third turn. He tells her that control is more important than the height of her extensions — which is true. But he does not see that his words are not getting to her.

The music starts, and Inga comes alive. She moves across the floor alternating between _petit jeté _and _grand jeté_. She throws herself too much, landing messily. The instructor covers his eyes in frustration for a moment. Inga continues on with the movement, her face unreadable. She kicks back too hard on an _arabesque penché_. Her hand catches the working leg, but she doesn't have the balance to properly straighten it. It goes on, her toes not pointed in the _fouetté en tournant _sequence. And at the very end she valiantly tries and fails to force a third _pirouette_, supporting ankle painfully buckling from overuse and exhaustion. Inga falters but doesn't fall down.

"No, no, _no_!" the teacher finally snaps. "How many times do I have to tell you? Point your toes! Don't sickle your feet! Shoulders down! You _can't_ do three! I have told you over and over again to turn twice! Do you know what that means, stupid girl? It means two, not three! Can you not count?"

Inga's chest is rising and falling quickly. Her face is flushed. None of it is because of the exertion. There's fire in her eyes. Natalia watches her, knowing what is coming next.

"You are the fool!" Her voice rings with terrifying beauty with the end of the song playing on the stereo. "You are a fool and a failure! I should be able to do three turns by now! I _should_! Because _you_ were supposed to teach me! It is your job to make me do three! You are holding me back! Why can't you push me! Edel won't want me if I can't even do three _pirouettes_! I hate you! You're stupid and a failure and I hate you! I never want to see you again. Get out. _Get out!_"

And the instructor throws up his hands and does. Natalia refrains from shaking her head. A grown man being bossed around by a mere girl. The slamming of the studio door echoes. No one says anything, and the tinkling piano notes are still floating like fireflies around the studio. Natalia looks to where Inga stands in the center of the room. She is fighting tears. That heaviness in Natalia's stomach grows. In the end, Natalia waits for Inga in the car until she collects herself and is ready to go home.

Most of the ride is quiet. Inga nudges Natalia's arm.

"What is it?" she asks the girl.

"I think there's something wrong with my foot." Inga pulls off her shoe (which is really more like a slipper) and shows Natalia her swollen ankle.

She nods. "Ice it when we get back. Tell your father. We'll take you to see someone."

Nemchinov is no mood to deal with his daughter's outburst. He sighs and grumbles, but doesn't reprimand her. He sets an appointment with a physician the next day. In the city. Will Natuska take her? Yes, what else is Natuska for? Inga doesn't sob into her pillow that night.

The next afternoon, Natuska sits beside Inga in the sterile environment that is the orthopedic office. When the physician's assistant calls her name, Natalia asks, "Would you like me to go with you?"

Natalia pretends that nothing flinches in her when Inga shakes her head no.

As soon as the girl is gone beyond the door, Natalia's phone rings. The number is familiar. She ignores the call and promptly leaves the office (knowing that Inga will be busy for a while). When she finds the nearest payphone, Natalia dials the number that was just calling her. It rings for all of a second before the call is picked up.

A voice says, "_WP. Vnuchki. Orya Khomich._"

The line goes dead.

Natalia replaces the phone and goes to work. Orya Khomich lives in a tall, thin house that looks as if one strong wind would do it in. The woman who answers Natalia's knock has not quite left the remnants of girlhood behind her. With just one look, Natalia can tell that Orya Khomich is an addict and has been such for most of her sixteen-year old life.

"Who the fuck are _you_?" Khomich says.

_Hostile._

Natalia allows herself to smile. "My name's Nastia."

"What the hell do you want?"

_Defensive._

"I'm here on behalf of Ilya Nemchinov."

Khomich runs. Natalia calmly enters the house and closes the door. _Then_ she pursues the little junky into the house. She catches up to Khomich as she tries to dial a number on her phone while also trying to escape through an upstairs window. Natalia throws a stiletto. It pins the hand Khomich is holding the phone in to the wall. Before her scream can rent the air, Natalia is on her with a hand over her mouth. Tears stream from the girl's eyes and she makes muffled cries from beneath Natalia's gloved palm.

"Be quiet," Natalia says calmly, patiently.

Eventually, Orya Khomich does as she says though the tears do not stop.

Keeping a hold on the knife pinning the girl to the wall, Natalia removes her hand from Khomich's mouth. "If you lie to me, I'm going to know. Understand?"

A single nod.

"You know Slava Malakhov?"

Another nod.

"Call him." Natalia forces the abandoned cell phone into Khomich's hand that is not staked to the wall.

Khomich dials.

Malakhov picks up as if he has been waiting day and night for the call. "Orya?"

Natalia raises an eyebrow in warning and nods to the phone.

Khomich says, "Come. Please."

Malakhov readily agrees. That is the end of their conversation. Natalia knows that they usually don't exchange more than seven words during their calls. She knows that Khomich is always the one to summon a ready and willing Malakhov. Theirs is a secret relationship, since Orya Khomich is the daughter of one of Nemchinov's partners. Not to mention that he is a rather unpredictable man — her father, Pavel Khomich, that is.

Orya Khomich looks up from the disconnected phone to Natalia. There is a desperate plea in her eyes.

Ignoring it, Natalia says, "You work with Vnuchki?"

Hesitation. Nod. (As if she didn't already know that when she threw a knife.)

"Well, then." Natalia wrenches the blade free from the girl's hand. Khomich cradles her punctured limb to her chest while she gasps and cries. "I'll do this as fast as I can."

Orya Khomich doesn't take the meaning of the words until the garrote is already tight around her neck. When Khomich loses consciousness, Natalia slashes her throat. After making a few more shallow slashes and stabs for show, Natalia leaves the stiletto beside the body. She exits through the backdoor and waits until she sees Malakhov turn onto the street. With the prepaid phone that first called her in the orthopedic doctor's office with the information, she dials emergency services, giving the woman on the other end nothing but the address of Orya Khomich's house. Natalia ends the call and drops the phone on the sidewalk, crushing it under her heel. With a single motion, she sweeps the pieces into a nearby sewer grate.

Natalia makes it back to the doctor's office with four minutes to spare. Inga approaches her with the most devastatingly blank look on her face.

Natalia can't stop herself from saying, "How'd it go?"

Inga shakes her head. "Achilles. Can't dance for three weeks."

"You'll miss the Edel auditions."

"Yeah."

"I'm sorry." A part of her might actually mean it.

"Yeah."


	6. Don Quixote

_June – Eight Months Earlier_

For quite some time Natalia's work goes unappreciated. And then . . .

A whole vat of trouble spills. The murder of Orya Khomich is front-page news. Everyone knows. Investigators find a stiletto switchblade with the fingerprints of Slava Malakhov on it at the scene of the crime. They also find Slava Malakhov himself at the scene of the crime. All of this is in the news. Because Malakhov is a known associate of Nemchinov — who in turn is a suspected supplier of illegally modified weapons to terrorists — the police and the public are _very_ interested. Nemchinov does not appreciate it. He has a lot of orders to fill, a new supplier to scout, and business to conduct. He cannot do what he needs to with the heat and attention that the horrid murder one of his own men committed has brought the organization.

On top of all of that, his partner — and supplier of the more valuable and sought-after weapons that Nemchinov offers — Pavel Khomich is out for blood.

Nemchinov is not stupid. He will not be able to establish any ties with someone who can provide the mortars and light weapons that the Vnuchki group does any time soon. Those types of relationships take time — time that Nemchinov does not have. His clients want those mortars and light weapons, and they want them as soon as possible. Nemchinov personally contacts Khomich and sets up a meeting in the hopes that their business relationship can be salvaged.

Natalia is not as optimistic as Natuska's employer. She is counting on Khomich being the same way. Of course, she is counting on everything turning out just so. Everything must go as anticipated. Natalia can work on the fly, though she does not like to. The whole point of killing Khomich's daughter was to upset relations between the Vnuchki and Nemchinov. Privately, Natalia had had a moment of doubt when she saw the state of Orya Khomich's house. She thought for a passing second that the girl was estranged from her father and Pavel Khomich wouldn't care in the slightest if his girl was found dead. Why else would he let his daughter go on living in a pigsty when he was the keeper of such large (illegal) funds?

Luckily, it hadn't come to that. It appears that Pavel Khomich cares very much that his daughter is dead. He is even angrier to have found out that a bastard such as Slava Malakhov was despoiling her for who-knows-how-long. (_Well,_ Natalia thinks, _Orya Khomich may have already seen some spoiling of a different kind before Slava._) In all likelihood, Khomich and his Vnuchki won't be handing out any white phosphorous-laced weapons to Nemchinov's brood any time soon. Which was the whole point.

There is the added bonus that Nemchinov has let loose his rage on his own ranks. For all that he is, Slava Malakhov is not a bad friend. When Nemchinov decides that someone needs to put an end to Malakhov before the investigation leads anyone to the mansion's front door, no one is willing. Nemchinov lets the men feel his wrath. Malakhov endangered their operation, ruined their business relationship with the Vnuchki. Ilya Nemchinov gives his ranks one thousand and one reason why Malakhov needs to be dead, but none of those words persuade the men to personally send their friend six feet under. Nemchinov does something very stupid in response — he uses what remains of their white phosphorus on three of Slava Malakhov's biggest supporters until one of them agrees to do it.

Slava Malakhov is killed awaiting trial quite inexplicably two days later.

On the day after the death, Nemchinov goes off with his most-trusted men to meet with Pavel Khomich. He will try to uphold the agreement they have, but Natalia knows that Nemchinov will not be able to save it. Their alliance is dead and gone, and in its place Natalia has instilled hostilities.

She is still feeling quite satisfied with herself after Nemchinov leaves for his meeting. Natalia spends the morning helping Inga stretch. Everything the doctor suggested Inga do to safely recover her ankle is done. Natalia counts for her as she does slow calf raises and heel drops. Inga works on her turnout when she is bored (which is often). A lot of time is spent in the vast sitting room where Inga practices with her instruments. Natalia notices that the girl prefers to play the cello even though she is stronger on the piano. Whenever her father is in the house, Inga plays his favorites at the grand piano. There is an upright player piano in the studio on the mansion's ground floor, and sometimes Natalia will play the pieces she knows for Inga as she gingerly and slowly goes through the dance she would have done for her Edel audition on bare feet — rising just barely to _demi-pointe_ the whole way through.

They are in the in the studio now, player piano plinking out an imperfect adaption of a piece by Tchaikovsky. Natalia sits beside Inga on the floor and they let their legs extend straight out in front of them, leisurely stretching forward and gripping their heels. Natalia has finally managed to get Inga talking again. It took a lot of digging and work, but the girl has finally begun reemerging out of her fog. After the debacle with Oleg Malkin and the injured Achilles, Inga was a miserable sight for quite some time. But now Natalia has managed to pull life out the girl again. She is young and capable of recovering. It won't be long before Malkin is nothing more than a distant memory.

Sitting on the studio in old sweats and familiar ballet slippers, Inga goes on and on about the first ballet she remembers going to. Her mother had taken her to see _The Rite of Spring_. Inga hadn't liked the dance very much, but she remembers loving the company of her mother. Natalia listens, but doesn't offer very much in reply. She doesn't know how to relate to anything the girl says. Natalia has never known a mother. She has known handlers and teachers and instructors. She has known masters. But she has never known a mother or a sister or a brother. There have been a few men that one might describe as paternal figures, but Natalia balks at calling them anything remotely like what a father should be. She doesn't know family. A stupid, silly part of her thinks that Inga is helping Natalia just as much as Natuska is helping Inga. They are learning to _be_ from each other.

Inga, a dancer; Natalia, a person.

Inga is saying, "I think I would like to see it again. _The Rite of Spring_, I mean. Perhaps I was too young then to really appreciate it. Maybe I'm just hoping it will remind me of my mother. There aren't a lot of things left of her in the house."

It sounds as if the girl is speaking more to herself than to Natalia, so she doesn't offer a reply. There aren't a lot of reminders of mothers in any of the places that Natalia has taken up residence in either. But that is completely different from Inga. There is very little — if anything — in common between Inga Nemchinova and the person Natalia was at her age. Something internal shivers at the thought of innocent little Inga in the places Natalia was when she was eleven.

_Inga in red. Inga with poison. Inga in pain. Inga without a name._

Natalia shakes herself from the thoughts. Trying to focus on what the girl is saying about her mother, she hears it.

Natalia hears footfalls and freezes. There shouldn't be anyone in the house. Anyone that _is_ here is in the basement plant and they should not be leaving the assembly area until Nemchinov returns. Even if they did leave the underground lair, there is no reason for them to come to the studio. No, someone is outside of the room. Natalia can feel it — definitely can hear it. Their steps are practiced in the art of stealth, but Natalia was trained by a ghost with much higher standards. She _knows_.

Inga is still talking and Natalia abruptly cuts her off with a way of the hand. Inga releases her hold on the sides of feet and straightens up.

"What is it?" says Inga.

Natalia gives Inga a significant look that implores the girl to _listen_.

Inga quiets and concentrates. She can't hear anything. Natalia knows she can't. The footsteps have paused, but she can sense that their sneak is just beyond the door. Her mind is far ahead of her, calculating. Without really thinking about it, Natalia's training activates and whatever effort she has been using to maintain the front of Natuska falls away. She knows that Inga can see the difference. The girl isn't stupid for all her youth. Perhaps it happens because Natalia's mind had been stuck on her past and rooms painted in red, but Natuska falls away from her as if she was merely taking off a coat. Something primal and almost _protective _grips Natalia's stomach were that weight has been living for the past several weeks. Inga can see the difference in Natalia — she sees the predator that's been hiding in her nanny's skin rise to the surface.

Natalia makes eye contact with the girl and jerks her head toward the piano. Inga does as she says, skittering away and putting the big, antique instrument between herself and the door. Natalia rolls to her feet, silent as the ghost that taught her. Though the two have stopped speaking, there is still music playing in the studio. The keys depress themselves, and the player piano plays a cover for her. She's stepping across the floor like a shadow, and it's the most natural thing in the world. It is comfortable and organic and Natalia hasn't felt this _right_ in all of her life.

She stands with her back pressed to the wall beside the door. Even dressed as she is, there are weapons on her person. Her hands clench around the line of the garrote disguised as a bracelet. She counts like she was taught.

_One, two, three, four, five, six_.

And she knows the hunter is counting too. Because he kicks the door that is already ajar fully open and fires a gun into the room. There is a silencer on the end, but the shots sound too loud in the room. The slugs bury themselves in the antique wood of the player piano. The sounds become warped. Something purely instinctual gurgles up inside her and she is acting without thought for the first time in what feels like her entire life.

She swings under the outstretched arm, taking a good hold and pulling until she hears the wet pop of the joint leaving the socket. The gun clatters out of his hand. The shooter curses and swings at her with his unhindered arm. He is not a bad opponent, but she has faced far more challenging foes. They counter each other, him always grunting and shouting in pain or frustration. She doesn't make a sound even when he lands a few blows — ghosts don't speak and neither do spiders.

In a series of unlucky events, the attacker untangles himself from her web — she curses her foolishness. The instincts dictating her actions are sloppy. The attacker makes for Inga, who is crouched behind the still-playing mutilated player piano. The hooks inside Natalia dig into that ancient _thing_ that they've been trying to extract for so long and she thinks she feels it come loose.

And then a firearm is discharging. It is quiet — the silencer — but it is still too loud in the room.

Everything in Natalia stops. A grandfather clock chimes somewhere. A gun is fired twice more and a body hits the floor with finality. Natalia chokes out a rough breath as she watches red paint the studio. She looks up and Inga meets her eyes. The attacker's gun falls from the little girl's hand and she begins to cry.


	7. A Midsummer Night's Dream

_July – Seven Months Earlier_

30 June gives birth to 1 July, and a dead man lies on the floor of the dance studio. Natalia stands broken. Compromised. Ruined. _Feeling_. Inga is still crying. They're big, air-sucking sobs. Years of conditioning (which should not have taken so long to kick in) surface and a scream tears itself from Natalia throat. There are no thoughts in her head besides an unending string of curses. Everything has been ruined. Cover blown because of the girl.

_ The girl. She has a name. She has a _name.

That weight in Natalia's gut is heavy. It is growing. Whatever just happened here busted all of her defenses and it has the freedom to consume her.

Even when the "security" gets to them and calls Nemchinov, even when the baron returns home and cradles his weeping daughter, even when they take the body out and lift the blood off the floor, even after _everything _— Natuska will not come back. She doesn't feel like Natuska, and she doesn't feel like Natalia either. It's as if no one's there anymore. The covers and codes names and aliases have fled before she is ever revealed to be what she is. She stands there not as Natuska but only as herself. The men ask her again and again if she's okay. They ask her what happened.

It's late the next morning when words finally come to Natalia's lips. They've steered her to a seat away from the scene of the murder. The first thing she thinks when her mind starts up again is, _Where is the girl with the name? How could I have let this happen to her?_ What she says is, "I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

There are men around her. They are attentive. They shush her and put heavy arms around her shoulders. Take her murderous hands and thread their treacherous fingers through hers. They croon soft word that might work on someone more alive than her. They might work on a person but they don't work on spiders. The _feeling _in her stomach clenches her insides in a painful iron fist. In the midst of all the placating whispering, she does something she hasn't done sincerely since she had only one name given to her by the woman who also gave her life.

She cries.

Nemchinov sends her to a safe house not long after. She doesn't argue because she doesn't know whose voice she'll speak with. Natuska still evades her. _Everything_ except for crushing, foreign _feeling_ remains in her grasp. There are always tears so close to the surface. What makes all of it worse is that she doesn't understand _why_. Why had she fought so poorly? What had stopped her from efficiently taking down that assassin like she has taken down so many before? She had no injuries and was not wearing anything that would have hindered her range of motion. He was definitely not as skilled as she. There is only one ghost and a handful of spiders that could ever truly challenge her in hand-to-hand combat like that. So what had gone wrong?

The only thing she can think of is Inga. The girl's presence compromised her. How? Why? She had no idea. The presence of Natalia returns to her while she is stored away in the safe house and she uses this familiarity to analyze the fight. What was it about Inga that had caused this shift that is so unnatural and unfamiliar? What about that stupid, idiot girl is it that compromised a Black Widow's training? It is unheard of. The very point cultivating such a weapon is that it cannot be compromised by things as frivolous and fleeting as _emotion_ and _feeling_.

And yet here she sits in a pool of emotion that she has no idea how to handle. She doesn't know where it comes from or what it is trying to tell her. But she knows that she is drowning in it.

_Anger,_ she recognizes.

_Revenge_, she can understand.

_Protect_.

She doesn't know. Protect what? Who? Why?

_ The girl with the name._

It becomes clear to her that Inga has not said anything incriminating about her to her father. Nemchinov does not come to interrogate her. He does come to the safe house to ask her what happened. She mechanically tells him the facts. He seems only concerned about her. Ilya Nemchinov is worried about the sweet, lovely nanny that his daughter adored only a few weeks ago. He promises Natuska that she is safe. He promises that nothing like that will ever threaten her again. Nemchinov tells her that he'll protect her. Ilya Nemchinov thanks Natuska Shostakova for risking her life to protect the little body that walks around with his heart.

Inga misses her, he tells her. Will Natuska come back? He has increased security at the house. Inga feels safe with Natuska around. He understands if she wants more time to adjust and recover from that nasty shock. The girl misses her and so does Nemchinov.

Natalia cannot understand. Is Inga protecting her? Lying to her father? The little girl had seen the predator that Natalia is. She saw the Black Widow rise to the surface and attack. Perhaps her lackluster performance had worked to her advantage. Did Nemchinov think that she had merely been trying to protect her charge? Inga is not as stupid as she pretends to be. She must know to some degree what Natalia is. She must suspect that Natalia is not merely a babysitter. She is an agent. A spy. Inga must know what her father does is less than upright. She _must_ think that Natalia is working against it because off all the shit that has landed at her father's feet over the past several months.

What is Inga trying to do?

_The girl with the name._

Natalia tells Ilya Nemchinov, "I'll be back tonight."

He kisses her cheek in gratitude when he leaves.

That swirling pool of emotion in her stomach roils and tells her, _Protect._

And just like that, she has a mission. She already has the intel though she doesn't remember where it comes from. She knows what needs to be done. The men leave with Nemchinov. Only two remain to help Natuska gather up her precious few belongings to return to work, the mansion, and Inga. One of the men she convinces to go on his way. He has a girl somewhere, she knows. He hasn't had the chance to talk to her since the disaster at the mansion.

The second man she loses the hard way. She tells him that her mother is in the hospital and that Natuska really needs to see her. He looks put out but goes along with it. Natalia brushes his arm with a suppressant. He sits in wait in one of the "lounges" for distressed family. Natalia walks down a hallway and slips into an empty room. She counts the minutes. She knows that he'll be out in only a few minutes.

There is a shout and scuffling in the hallway. She leaves the room and leaves the hospital. She gets a ride to the city. It takes a few hours of wandering before she finds her target. She stalks him for an additional hour. She's on a clock, but it's not _that_ demanding. She had to be back when her "body guard" wakes up and is released.

Natalia tracks her prey to an antique shop. She leans over the glass counter and looks down at a music box with a tag that suggests it is hand-carved and dates back to fall of the Tsar Nicholas II. Natalia doubts it more than she's doubted anything in her life, but it's a pretty thing. The panes in the windows shake with the thunder of an imminent storm.

All those other personalities she could pull on like a second skin are still too far away, so she is forced to be herself. It's all for the best. He would be suspicious if anyone but Natalia showed up. She catches her subject's eye and twitches her lips just enough for him to see. She moves around the shop, tracking his movements. They meet eyes frequently. By design. He has no one around to protect him. He is as alone as she is. He thinks too highly of himself to think that he needs protection. He walks into the washroom in the shadowy back end of the store. A few moments later, she follows.

He says, "One of my Widows."

Natalia inclines her head. He knows. He helped make a ghost and took what he learned to make twenty-eight spiders. She is moving before he can say anything else. She slaps his face with a dermal toxin. It will look like a man simply had a lethal cardiac event on the toilet in mere minutes. She sentences him to death for daring to take away a little girl's name.

He is still breathing (realizing that his Black Widows are capable of being corrupt and imperfect, that he is a failure) when she leaves the washroom. Natalia smiles at the shopkeeper and buys the music box.

Outside, the clouds finally buckle under the weight of themselves. It rains. Lightning flashes and the ground shakes.

Natalia goes to the hospital and waits two minutes for her escort to come grumbling up to her. He takes her back to the Nemchinov estate. He goes straight home afterwards. She walks inside the mansion as if she's lived here her entire life.

It's raining.

Natalia hears the tendrils of a melody just under the crashing of thunder. She pauses mid-step — listening. It is a common piece; one of those preludes to Bach's cello suites. Inga must be up. Natalia follows the sounds even though she knows it is not wise to be in another's company right now. There is a _feeling_ curling like snakes in her stomach, and she cannot make it leave. She knows Inga should not see her like this — she should not see _Natalia_. (Again.)

Inga sits in a chair facing a dying fire. She pulls the bow across the strings, fingers pressing and shifting along the neck of her cello. Natalia doesn't try to hide her presence even though it would be so easy. She could stand in this room and listen for hours and Inga would never be any wiser. But she doesn't try to hide now. Natalia listens to the words Inga isn't saying; a captive audience. The sounds are familiar and common, but it might as well be the first time Natalia has heard any of them.

She walks until she is seated on the bench before the grand piano — Inga's other instrument. The music fills the vast room even though it is not particularly loud. It fills the room like the soft light of a candle. That heaviness that is so foreign to Natalia shifts toward the sounds. She wants it gone. She doesn't know what it is, but she knows that she doesn't want it. It curls and expands in her gut. It grips her throat; not enough to choke but enough to let her know it's there. It pushes on the backs of her eyes and makes her head feel too heavy for her neck.

But this music, these sounds. They are far worse and much better than anything Natalia has ever felt before. It is so incredibly close to taking her away.

Inga drags her bow across the strings abruptly. Her other hand falls away from the cello. She looks at Natalia with rivers in her eyes.

Inga says, "He didn't want me to play, you know. Said it was _her_ instrument. My mother's."

Natalia doesn't say anything. She wants so badly for that stupid little girl to start playing again.

"He doesn't understand. Have you ever lost someone and no one else understood what that someone meant to you?"

_I have never lost anything because I've never had anything to lose_.

Natalia can't make herself be Natuska. The _feeling_ in her is too heavy, too _present _to be traded away for a lie. She looks at Inga — who is letting rivers smooth away the memories of her mother — and nods her head yes.

Inga says, "I hate the cello. It makes me cry and feel bad, but it's all I have of her. If I have to feel like this every time I play, it's worth it."

And she cries.

Natalia sits at the piano bench and lets her fingers rest atop the ivory keys. Her eyes want to stray toward the crying girl, but she won't allow them. She can't. It isn't hers. Nothing about Inga is Natalia. There is a need in Natalia. It's the heaviness inside her that makes her sit up straight and press her fingers gently against the piano keys.

Natalia plays a spiraling melody, notes that turn in circles — feet that are moving but never going. Natalia plays a question, a request.

Inga answers. It hurts her and it makes her sad, but Inga Nemchinova draws the bow over the strings once more. She plays what Natalia asked her to play. The rivers run dry on Inga's youthful cheeks. She closes her eyes so she may trick herself into believing that her mother is there. Inga remembers and Natalia spirals into herself.

As they play, Natalia feels as if she's cracking. She's not big enough to contain the growing weight inside her. She is not Natuska, nor is she Natalia — she isn't Natasha or Natalie or Nadine or Laura or Oktober or Tsarina or anyone else. She is only herself. Something within is giving up. Something within is turning off. Something within is dying.

And she feels relieved.

* * *

**Note:**

**The song described at the end is intended to be 'Le Cygne,' which was composed by ****Camille Saint-Saëns for his suite _Le Carnaval des Animaux_. It is the music to which _'_The Dying Swan' was choreographed. It was mentioned (in Chapter 4: Romeo and Juliet) that 'The Dying Swan' was the last dance Black Widow did while with the Bolshoi Ballet. **

**Black Widow knew the man in the antique shop from the Red Room. The 'ghost' mentions are shameless references to the Winter Soldier. **


	8. Swan Lake

_August – Six Months Earlier _

It's all different. Natalia feels as if blinders have been ripped from her eyes — she hadn't even known they were there. There is shifting in her chest when she thinks of all the tasks she has yet to complete. Worst of all are the feelings.

They're different.

Before, she mostly had sensations. She knows which emotions people would display in a given situation and she can recreate them. Never has she truly felt anything, she thinks. Natalia knows what happiness looks like and when people feel it. She just doesn't think that she has ever _actually_ felt it before. Perhaps she knew the feeling a long time ago, when she was someone else who had only one name. Natalia knows that feelings are never truly lost, only dulled and removed with time. Natalia must have been happy once. She knows this with certainty even though she can't actually remember it. Once upon a time she was a normal girl who smiled and shouted and wanted only to play and be loved. Natalia has half a mind to go find that girl and save her — go back under all the layers of identities she's created for herself and those that had been created for her until she finds the person that lived here first. Maybe if she can find that girl, Natalia can learn something. Maybe if she finds that girl, she can remember what happiness feels like.

Until she finds that girl, there is Inga.

Because of that foolish little girl, Natalia thinks she is feeling something akin to real emotions again. Certainly what she feels is not happiness. Whatever it is carries a sharpness she is unaccustomed to. For so long she'd lived in a world of pretend; creating illusions from nothing but smoke and false memories. If she was living with her emotions on mute before she came to the Nemchinov mansion, then the function has most certainly been disabled. Thoughts ring in her head in a way they didn't before. Ideas and actions no longer come in unhindered pairs. Her logical and methodical way of thinking has become weighted down with considerations of such bizarre concepts of _right_ and _wrong_. A voice that is not a voice as much as a mindful twist in her gut reminds her that her actions should be made with care and consideration of other people.

Natalia feels.

She hates it. Whatever happened in that sitting room with Inga playing the last song of a swan did something permanent to Natalia. A protective shell has been stripped from her, leaving her raw and reactive to even the most subtle of stimuli. Natalia feels everything. It is overwhelming at times, and she is grateful that everyone around her assumes she is shaken up from the attempted assassination. Strange and different though all the foreign emotions and feelings are, Natalia feels lighter. She feels unburdened. She feels.

_Feeling_ is not something spiders are supposed to do. But now that she thinks about it, Natalia wonders if perhaps she doesn't want to be a spider anymore. She is not stupid. Natalia knows that she will always foster the knowledge of how to spin a complicated web and will carry the venom of her kind forevermore. In fact, she is fairly certain that she doesn't want to lose those things anyway. But a spider doesn't have to follow anyone's directions. A spider lives on its own and depends on itself. Her webs will be more than enough to ensnare prey. She doesn't need anyone to tell her where and when to spin. That twist in her gut doesn't hurt so badly when she thinks these things.

Natalia feels and she hates it. But she wouldn't trade the feelings away even if she could.

If Inga notices the difference in Natalia, she doesn't comment on it. In fact, the girl is almost completely indifferent. When Natalia had returned without fronting as Natuska, she'd feared that Inga would run screaming from the room to alert security that there was a snake in their midst. But the girl hadn't said anything about it. Inga didn't seem to care that Natalia was there nor what Natalia represented. There were plenty of vague and murky details that Inga must have been curious about, but the girl never mentioned any of it. She didn't want to talk about what happened during the attempt on her life, and she didn't want to talk about who Natuska really was. And Natalia was relieved. For all intents and purposes, Inga treated her almost exactly the same. Almost.

Natalia wondered why and how the girl could be like that though Natalia was smart enough not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Perhaps there was something about the idea of Natuska that was too important to Inga for her to give up. Natalia certainly found that being around Inga helped soothe the turbulent crashing inside her chest — she wouldn't surrender that calm very easily. If the Nemchinov girl was the thing that led Natalia back to where she wanted to be, then she would not leave the girl for anything.

The two of them sit side by side in the doctor's office not long after Natuska's return to work. They face a window that frames the park across the street. It is busy. Natalia nudges Inga's shoulder and points out a boy about the Inga's age. Natalia raises her eyebrows and gives the girl a practice smile (smiling with genuine emotion is new to her and, thus, requires a lot of training). Inga rolls her eyes and mimes gagging. She indicates a young woman in the park unabashedly adjusting her underwear, and then it is Natalia's turn to stifle a huge smile and a laugh. They keep up this game of people watching — Natalia is an _expert_ at people watching — until a technician calls Inga's name.

The girl stands and says, "Will you come with me?"

There is no hesitation when Natalia says, "Of course."

As the doctor tells Inga that she is clear to dance again, Natalia's phone rings. It is a summons, she knows, but she doesn't feel rushed to respond. After Inga is given the green light to dance again, they go to a dance supply store and buy_ pointe_ shoes that they don't need. Inga wants a pair in red so she can look like Vicky in _The Red Shoes_. Natalia indulges her — she'd danced the same steps when she was younger. They buy tap shoes even though neither of them dances tap. The two of them get ice cream and walk along the river's edge at dusk.

That night, the two of them break in all the shoes they bought — stripping and adjusting the shanks, slamming the materials in a door jamb, sewing in the silly ribbons they'd bought, softening the toe box. They trade stories. Inga speaks about her scarce memories of her mother. Natalia tells her about the dance she liked least while working with the Bolshoi, which is _Le festin de l'araignée. _After that, Natalia helps Inga _really_ stretch out her legs and hips. The little girl is stiff and a little out of practice but it's nothing that can't be solved with a little hard work. Inga plays Bach on her cello in her nightgown before the fire. When Natalia asks her to play "_El cant dels ocells_" even though it's August, Inga smiles and plays the piece flawlessly. Both of them hum the absent words.

The whole time Natalia's phone buzzes. Eventually, she turns it off.

Much, much later — after Inga has long gone to bed — Natalia ensures that there is adequate security around the girl, and then sneaks out past the very same security. She leaves the mansion grounds and ghosts down countless roads. _Protect_, her twisting stomach screams at her, _protect._ She intends to do just that. For most the night, Natalia watches and analyzes the grounds of Pavel Khomich's factory. Before the sun is fully raised, she is back in Natuska's quarters as if she'd been there all along.

Over the next three weeks, she does this every night. Everything she learns about the place is meticulously noted. All the emotions inside her quiet when she's in motion like this. No voices scream in the back of her head when she is scouting the white phosphorous plant. Natalia takes that as a good sign. The lack of proper sleep wears on her, but Natalia has endured worse conditions than this.

The night finally comes when she must make her move. It will disrupt her schedule that she's developed with Inga. Something tells her that the girl will understand.

As Natalia and Inga stand beside one another at the barre, Natalia says, "There's something I have to do tonight."

Inga looks directly into her eyes, and Natalia knows that the girl sees exactly what she means. There is nothing to hide so Natalia doesn't try to veil anything. Inga nods, lowers to _demi_-_plié_, and says, "You've retired with feminine issues. You'll be fine by tomorrow morning."

They don't exchange any more words. As she travels, Natalia thinks what she should make of Inga's complying with her nefarious purposes. The girl doesn't know what sort of dangerous things spiders get up to during the night, yet she simply trusts that whatever Natalia is doing will not blow back on Inga and make her suffer. Natalia doesn't know whether to be touched by the trust or frustrated by Inga's stupidity.

Because the attack was personal, Natalia plans to pay Khomich back with a personal touch. As the guards round, Natalia phases through their lines of security, planting charges as she goes. A heavy step here and a not-so-accidental bump into noisy machinery ensure that all the guards are drawn into the building. As their awareness that someone has infiltrated the building rise so too does Natalia level of caution. They sweep the corridors with their weapons ready.

The whole thing only takes two hours to set up. That's what careful planning will give you. Natalia is nestled in the branches of a nearby tree when all the work comes to fruition.

_Bang_, and the entire staff that is on duty is locked inside the factory with several tons of detonated white phosphorous rounds.

_ Bang_, and powder is burning deep into their flesh.

_ Bang_, and their lungs are revolting against the poisoned air.

_Bang,_ and they're worse than dead.

_Bang_, and the men that work for the monster that tried to kill an innocent little girl are beginning to regret it.

A practice smile crawls across Natalia's face. It may have been her fault that the whole mess had been created — Natalia had, after all, killed Khomich's daughter — but she feels justified in this. _Protect, _her new conscience says, so that is what she is doing. She's ensuring that what is hers never gets threatened again. Khomich should not have gone after the girl with only one name in order to avenge his drug-addicted daughter. He could have assassinated anyone else and Natalia would not have batted an eye. But he'd gone after Inga.

_Bang_, and there is only one name left requiring a personal visit.

* * *

**Note:**

**In case it is unclear, the assassin from chapter 6 was sent by Khomich as a sort of eye-for-an-eye, daughter-for-a-daughter kind of deal. I figure most of you can draw that line but thought I'd spell it out here in case it was too subtle or vague. **

**_Le festin de l'araignée _is a short modern dance. In English, it is called 'The Spider's Feast'.**

**"_El cant dels ocells_" is a traditional Christmas song/lullaby in Catalonia. Cellist Pablo Casals composed an instrumental version of the song, which is the version that is alluded to in this chapter. **


	9. Coppélia

_September - Five Months Earlier_

There is a meeting. A big meeting. Everyone in Nemchinov's network convenes in the mansion. Clients and suppliers, people Natalia hadn't even known existed, show up on the grounds one crisp afternoon.

By the time the guests begin arriving, Natuska is back in a limited capacity. She exists only on the surface. Natalia feels Natuska weighing on her, feels the false flesh on her face in ways that she had never felt before. Natuska is not in her bones as she once was. Instead, the name sits on top of Natalia, foreign and separate, refusing to sink in and consume. She doesn't know whether she misses the old identity that slid on as a second skin — that _was_ a second skin (or a third, or fourth, or any infinite number) — or if she is glad to be rid of it. She remains only Natalia for better or worse.

Every face is cataloged as they enter. If it is possible, she collects all of their fingerprints and identifying characteristics. There is a challenge and a risk involved with allowing so many people into Nemchinov's personal space in these tense times. All of that nasty business with the Vnuchki . . . Any one of them could be a mole. Natalia's stomach ties itself in a small knot at the thought. It annoys her because it has never happened before. She is glad that Inga is out spending the day with her grandparents. She isn't sure why.

After all of the guests are tucked away in the conference room, Natalia wanders into the kitchen, where security is at its most lax, and presses the transceiver closer to her ear as if it might improve the signal. Busying herself with glassware, Natalia listens.

Nemchinov is saying, "_We are all aware of the situation. We have a traitor in our midst. Nothing but shit has been raining on us for some time now. We all know it. Things have been getting progressively worse. My sellers are being shut down. My suppliers, which I have had excellent relationships with for a long time, are turning on me. So what's this all about? Someone is sabotaging our operation, and this is the first step in finding out who that someone is._"

Natalia smiles to herself as if he has flattered her with those pretty words. A muted laugh escapes her (_what happened to all of her self-control?)_ and she listens to her pseudo employer list all of the misfortunes that have befallen his company because of her to all of his guests.

"_It's horrible what happened to Slava. I'm sorry that it had to happen that way. I loved the boy like a son. Some of you may be thinking that all of this bad blood with Pavel and the Vnuchki would end when he did. I know Pavel. We've been friends for many years and business partners for several years before that. We should be able to put this behind us, shouldn't we? That doesn't appear to be the case. I can't let it lie when he goes after my little girl. _

"_Then again, we need the WP. There's no one else in these parts that can supply the laced rounds. So what are we supposed to do now? Do we find a way to bury the hatchet, no matter what? Do you all think we can salvage our agreement with the Vnuchki? Do you want to?_"

None of those questions actually need to be answered. Natalia knows Nemchinov's type. He is putting the choice before all of his associates, but there is a right answer and a wrong one. Khomich threatened his daughter. Anyone that suggests the baron reconcile with his nemesis will surely end up at the bottom of a lake.

No one wants to salvage the relationship. In fact, they demand to get even. The more they talk about Slava Malakhov's death (they all agree that it had to be done and that Khomich drove them to do it because of his daughter) and the attempt on Inga's life (there's that twist, those cracks in the foundation again), the more upset the men become. They work themselves into an indignant frenzy. They want to shake the hand of the person that blew up Khomich's factory and killed his men with burning snowflakes.

Ha.

Nemchinov calms them at this point and brings some reason back. He pulls the conversation back to the lingering issue. The rat in their midst. The cancer in the network. Judas at their table. He has endless comparisons. "_We need to be careful here, my friends. Yes, we should be very happy that some justice has been delivered to the Vnuchki. But we must think. Pavel would never be so careless and let his facilities fall into an unfit state, yes?_"

A murmur of consent breathes in Natalia's ear.

"_It must have been sabotage. Someone is gunning for us all. There's some nut out there trying to take us out. Kozlov was all but wiped off the map all those months ago. That was no coincidence with the things that are happening now. This blow may have hit our enemies this day, friends, but the next time it could be us. I want each and every one of you to look me in the eyes and personally assure me that you are in no way guilty of the betrayal and mayhem that is shitting all over us._"

Natalia lacks access to a video feed of the conference room, but she wishes she could see as all of the voices fill her ear and tell Nemchinov that he has their firm and unwavering loyalty. It makes her want to bark with laughter. As if any of those bozos were capable of spinning the web she's created. And even if any of them were capable of it, they would not be so stupid as to admit it to the man's face in front of an angry, righteous mob. If they had the skill, they would be able to look in his eye and lie so easily and prettily that the mastermind himself would believe it to be true.

They talk more about tightening ranks. Nemchinov is convinced he will be able to suss out the liar in no time. There is a small collection of his own men and some clients and suppliers that Nemchinov keeps with him after all the rest of them are dismissed. Natalia has to see all of the other guests out, enduring their wandering hands and juvenile kisses, but she listens to Nemchinov brief his trusted circle.

"_I don't trust any of those clowns that just left here for a minute. You men are the people I trust. You are the only ones I can count on. I want you to find this weasel and break every last one of his bones. Pull his tongue out, cut his vocal cords — I don't care. Make it so he can't work anymore. I don't want the fool dead. We're going to find out who's running us all into the ground. No way the fuckin' police figured any of this out. It has to be an entire group of vigilantes or some shit. You find a lead and you tell me as soon as you find it. We're takin' these sons of bitches out no matter the cost, got it? I don't care how much shit they throw at Pavel and his WP. I want the man dead for even thinking of coming after my girl. But more than all of that, we have to protect this family. No more lost sellers, no more sinking suppliers. Got it? If we have to burn this place to the ground to get rid of the leak, then that's what we're going to do._"

Not a bad idea.

After all the guests are gone and Nemchinov heads off to oversee a transaction, Natalia goes to collect Inga from her grandparents. A part of her that has already shoved everything Natuska away wants to stay and sweep the house. Her stomach twists and whispers _protect_. There could be bombs planted by one of those men that came in today singing their loyalty to Nemchinov. Any number of things could have been compromised in the chaos caused by all of those moving bodies and unfamiliar faces. Inga should be kept away, as far away from all of this mess as possible.

Natalia thinks about all of this as she walks the florescent halls of the nursing home. Both of Inga's (maternal) grandparents are residents in this place. Faulty brains plague them both. They forget who they are and where they live. Natalia feels some sort of camaraderie with the two of them. By now the elders do not recall how Inga is related to them, but they are not mean or violent the way a lot of Alzheimer's patients become as their memories fail them. They enjoy her company the same way they might enjoy petting a dog. The place smells of sterility and decay. There is something reassuring in that smell, Natalia thinks. Decay implies that life once dwelt somewhere.

"Ooh, Babushka, it's so pretty!" That is Inga's voice though it sounds nothing like her.

Natalia rounds a corner and sees the little girl sitting at her grandmother's feet. There is yarn wound around Inga's hands. The pale yellow string connects her to the crochet hook in the old woman's hands. She is making a granny square. How ironic.

"Oh, child, you're so kind," the old woman says.

"I just love it so much. What will you do with it, Babushka?"

She smiles at the little girl before her, the little girl with a name she can't remember, who is related to her in a way she doesn't even know about. "Would you like it, dear? I can give you one next time I see you and we can sew it together."

"Oh, would you, Babushka? I would love that so much. I can get one every time I see you and we can sew each square together until I have a beautiful blanket!"

"That sounds wonderful. Doesn't that sound wonderful, Nikolai?"

The ancient-looking man nods his head in time with the rocking of his chair. Natalia wonders if either of them knows that they'll forget this conversation ever happened in a few minutes or if they've forgotten that they forget things.

"Inga, sorry, it's time to go," Natalia says as she takes a few steps forward.

The girl twists to face Natuska and smiles. She says good-bye to her grandparents that don't know they're her grandparents, kissing each of them on their ancient cheeks, and follows Natalia out of the building. There is a crocheted square with a geometric pattern folded in her hands.

When they're on the way back to the mansion, Inga interrupts Natalia's thoughts when she says, "I only act like that for them."

"Hmm?"

"It's an act. You saw how I was with them. It's the same thing as when I first met you. I think people are happier when I'm acting like that. My grandmother was always happier to see me when I was a little kid. It may have been because she still sort of recognized me then." Inga shrugs. "I do it to make them happy even though they don't know who I am."

At home, they stretch until their arms and legs and spines feel like cooked spaghetti. Then they tie up their _pointe_ shoes and Natalia performs for Inga the Odile variation from the Black Swan _pas de deux._ Inga laughs when it's over and says that Natalia dances so gracefully that Inga can't help but smile. There is no protocol for reacting to a comment like that, so Natalia hauls Inga to her feet and teaches her as best she can — the whole ballet is very difficult technically, after all. To cool down, they lock hands and dance a reduced version of _Danse des petits cygnes_. The whole time they are laughing and Natalia feels like she's dancing with herself.

Overall, it was not a bad way to spend a day.


	10. Cinderella

_October - Four Months Earlier_

Natuska has earned a break. Nemchinov wants to spend time with his daughter on her birthday. How wonderful. Have fun. Are you sure you don't want a party? It would be no problem to arrange. Oh, okay, if you're _absolutely _sure. Is there anything you'd like me to pick up? You are so gracious.

Ha.

Natalia's stomach curdles like old milk at the thought of being away from Inga. The girl has had disturbed sleep. She is not well and there is not a chance that her oblivious father can see it — it had taken Natalia an embarrassingly long time to notice it herself. The little girl is an ever-growing enigma. There may be a whole different person living under Inga's skin. Natalia wouldn't be surprised. It is frustrating, though. Natuska has already gone to Nemchinov with concerns about Inga's health. The whole assassination has not served the girl well. Nemchinov had told Natuska that there was nothing to worry about. It is his daughter and he will look out for the girl.

Natalia doesn't trust Nemchinov's ability to protect Inga. Natalia doesn't trust anyone's ability to adequately protect the girl apart from herself.

But besides all of that, there is nothing Natalia can do to stop this. She has the day off and she will spend it wisely — there had been several hints that Nemchinov wanted to plan something just like this for his girl's birthday and Natalia had birthday arrangements to make too. There is always the option to follow Nemchinov and Inga wherever they go, but some part of Natalia resists the idea. She scoffs at the possibility that a part of her does not want to infringe on Inga's privacy. The little girl has no privacy when she is so young and stupid, when she needs such careful and constant protection from all of the horrors of her father's world.

There is a supplier. It will take Natalia two hours to reach the supplier's location. It will take three hours and forty-five minutes to scope out the area and bait the trap. It will take a mere second to spring it, though that second must be very carefully timed. As soon as the happy family is gone from the grounds, the face of Natuska melts to the floor, shattering like glass that never wanted to be held together in the first place. Natalia waits twenty-three minutes before she decides to leave. If Nemchinov was coming back for anything, he would have made a re-appearance by now. She has the day off, but she wants her wandering to be as unnoticed as possible.

Two hours of travel time pass and she hardly notices it. Such are the benefits of a spider's training. Patience. Unlimited patience such that time always seems to be galloping by full-tilt. Watching the mechanic shop (a front, obviously) for only a few minutes, Natalia stashes her vehicle a few blocks away. Luckily, the shop is in a shady part of town with plenty of abandoned buildings nearby. This is probably by design of the supplier. All the easier for her. She scales one of the buildings by its crumbling fire escape. Through a window missing a pane and she is in a musty room filled with unfriendly birds and grumpy owls. Oh well.

Now, surveillance.

Dropping her bag down on the dusty floor, she sets up shop. With a transceiver in one ear, she takes aim out window with her modified round. Natalia doesn't know who manufactures such excellent spy gear, but she would love to shake their hands. Stance sturdy and launcher level, she fires the microphone-carrying transceiver to the clubhouse/bar on the garage's lot. It hits its target just as it should have. The method is foolproof. It is the marksman that is at fault when a shot misses. If Natalia ever meets that ghost again . . . Well, now is not that time for thinking of such things. She'll only ever see him if he's looking for her. And there won't be any time for talking if that's the case.

Seven seconds later and the audio feed from inside the bar is being delivered to her ear. They are discussing an exchange that is going to occur later in the week. There are two scheduled for this week, one for Nemchinov and the other for Khomich. A shame that neither will be receiving their shipments. Natalia listens to their whole exchange. It lasts an hour. They make no mention of where they're stashing their goods, but they do say that they have to check up on how the assembly is going. She takes that to mean that someone will be heading out to their storage facility.

Natalia is right. A van leaves with an escort of motorcycles. She has to stop herself from laughing aloud. How hokey of them. How Hollywood. Loading a tracker round into the launcher, she fires and hits the van on the underside of one of the luggage wracks mounted up top. Five and three-fourths seconds later, her screen shows her a circle travelling along the nearby streets.

Well, in the meantime, she may as well move on to the next part of the operation.

Leaving everything where it is, she leaves the building and lands on the balls of her back on street level. Walking right onto the lot, she gets the first greasy-looking man's attention.

Smiling someone else's smile, she explains that her car has been making a crazy growling sound for, like, a really long time. And would you believe that it just stopped working a few blocks away? It totally won't start anymore, but when it does, it _snarls_. Isn't that weird? Is it the engine, you think? Natalia twirls her hair and looks as useless as possible. It feels a lot like being another one of her faces that she has lost the ability to summon.

The mechanic's gaze is almost tangible. If she could, Natalia would reach out and shred it into bloody pieces. But that would be counterproductive, and she is nothing if not productive. She lets him look, even encourages it in that way that people can do without saying a word or moving a muscle. Like the encouragement is just a flavor in the air.

He follows her to the car. Clicking on the voice analyzer hidden in the cuff of her jacket, she gets him talking as they walk. This is not as easy as she planned. The man seems more content to look than speak. But he is not the first person who she has come across that won't speak. He breaks much easier. She asks him about family. Does he have kids? A wife? Any siblings? You must love your family so much. Aw, that must have been so cute.

People love to talk about their children. It really is a terrifying thing to go blabbing about to strangers, Natalia thinks. So precious to these people and they would tell anyone who listens where their son goes to school, which hockey team he plays for, where their beautiful little daughter takes piano lessons. And to think that Natalia could be some monster who abducts children by gathering intelligence this way.

Parenthood. Such an elusive concept.

During all of this talking, the man looks under the hood of her car and declares it perfectly functional. He can replace her coolant if she would like. Maybe she can start the car so he can hear that snarl she was talking about.

Natalia starts the car. There is no snarl. She laughs and says that it's really inconsistent. At his word, he drives the car the few blocks into the shop. They change her oil, fasten a protective panel onto the bottom of the car that was barely loose before, and they change the coolant. The car sounds just as it did before.

Natalia thanks them too much and winks at the man who first talked to her. After paying with Nemchinov's money, she drives the car away, parks it in a different spot than before but on a street that is just as deserted. Then Natalia sneaks between buildings more stealthily than a snake in tall grass. Scaling the disappearing fire escapes once more, she arrives back at her hobbled together command-central. The tracker she placed on the van shows that it has stopped off of a farm road much closer to home than she thought. Lungs somehow too big for her chest all of a sudden, Natalia has the location saved.

Uploading all the data from the voice analyzer, Natalia tosses some crumbs from the crackers the greasy men offered her to the nesting birds. They look upset with her for throwing things at them, even though it was meant in good will. The owls peer at her with one stupid eye and take flight out the window. Ungrateful, the lot of them. A beep sounds from the laptop on the dusty floor, alerting Natalia to the end of a program's task. The voice generator has been complete. She can now speak with the mechanic's voice. A laugh that is not hers bubbles out of her chest.

Packing up and swirling around the dust so that her tracks are all but erased, Natalia sneaks away, finds her car, and heads in the direction of Nemchinov's grounds, all on schedule. One more meeting before she can go back and spread her protective wings around that little girl.

At an obnoxiously cozy little coffee shop, Natalia buys herself hot chocolate and some type of cheesy bread that looks irresistible. Four minutes and forty-nine seconds later, an aged woman enters and scans the room uncertainly. Natalia waves a hand and asks, "Irina?"

The old woman smiles and nods. "You must be Stasia."

"That's me," says Natalia.

Drawing an envelope from a purse that looks suspiciously as if it is made from carpet samples, the woman places it on the table beside Natalia's partially-eaten melted cheese and bread. Drawing an envelope of her own from a pocket in her jacket, Natalia puts it beside the old woman's.

Irina smiles at her as she collects Natalia's envelope. "You have fun now, dear."

"My little sister will love it. It's just what she needs right now. Thank you so much," Natalia says.

"I'm glad to hear it. Good night, Stasia."

"Good night, Irina."

The old woman leaves the shop without buying anything, which Natalia thinks is a shame since this cheesy bread is glorious. Inga would love it. Natalia will have to bring the girl here some time and they can get the enormous pile of bread and cheese and demolish it together. Tucking the old woman's envelope into her jacket where the other one used to be, Natalia exists the shop and continues on her way to Nemchinov's mansion.

When she gets back to Natuska's space — it's familiar and, dare she say it, _homey_ — she produces the music box she bought those months ago. The card claiming (lying) that it once belonged to the Romanov dynasty is still tucked inside. Natalia adds the envelope from Irina to the inside and closes it in the middle of the song. When Inga comes home thirty-five minutes and twelve seconds later, Natalia presents her with the music box. Inga's eyes glisten but she doesn't cry, and she doesn't say thank you. When she opens the box to hear the song and see the little ballerina turn on her platform, a smile that looks very much like it should be on a little girl's face crests her features. Inga plucks the envelope out and gasps at the contents.

"Natuska!" she breathes. "Wow!"

"It's not until January."

"You'll be coming with me, won't you?"

"If you'd like me to. And if it's okay with your father."

"Yes, of course, I'd like you to! I'm going to see the Bolshoi Ballet! I'm going to see the Bolshoi perform _The Firebird!_"

Four days later, a call is made by a mechanic to local authorities about suspicious activities going on at a barn on an abandoned farm. When the police raid the barn, they find thirteen men assembling illegal weapons, brewing illegal substances, and illegally modifying stolen goods. Police seize everything they find. Three days after that, a mechanic shop is shut down. Police raid the premises and seize even more incriminating evidence there. One day after that, Nemchinov and Khomich do not receive their shipments. Somewhere in the middle of all of this, the mechanic that allegedly made that first call is found dead beside the bodies of two children.


	11. Giselle

_November — Three Months Earlier _

"I want to see you dance. _Really _dance," Inga says.

It's snowing as if the end of the world is upon them. Already thirty centimeters have accumulated. If she goes outside, Natalia is confident that the mansion would look like an iced cake. It has been this way for nearly a day already. It might be the worst storm that Natalia has ever lived through. She doubts this, though; parts of her memory are absent. There are places Natalia has been that she doesn't want to remember anyway. She doesn't know what's missing, but she knows that _something_ is.

"You've seen me dance all the time," Natalia says.

Before she'd taken on the job with Ilya Nemchinov, Natalia was working in Malta. Now _there_ was a place with nice weather. There's something comforting about snow though, Natalia thinks. The stillness maybe. Winter is restful in a way. Then again, maybe Natalia is simply used to it — she likes the cyclical predictability of the seasons. Without the change, she thinks, she might never move.

Inga says, "Yes, I know, but you have never _performed_ for me."

It was snowing the day that building caught fire. It was the same day that a girl with one name was thrown from an inferno into a web from which she still hasn't escaped.

Natalia says, "_Performed _for you?"

_I perform for you every second of every day,_ she thinks.

_I used to_, she amends.

When that little girl in the web took her first life, it wasn't snowing. It was spring and it was drizzling. Spring, the books told her, was symbolic of life. Spring was rejuvenation. This made sense to the little girl as someone else's blood colored her hands like dyed eggs on Easter. When that blood dried and flaked off, the little girl imagined that she was breaking out of confinement. She was leaving behind her name and rising again as a spider.

"Yes, _performed_. You've demonstrated for me, but you've never put your heart into it and really shown me _you_. You said you were Bolshoi dancer — "

"I was."

" — and I want you to prove it. Perform for me, Natuska. Show me; _really_ show me what a Bolshoi dancer looks like."

All the lives after the first were easier. She didn't feel so heavy anymore. A spider is much lighter than a girl. As a spider, she was quiet. She could do what they asked of her. They could ask her to achieve a mission, and she could do it quickly and perfectly. When she was a spider, she had convinced herself that it was what she wanted. After all, being a girl had been painful. It had hurt to have a name she couldn't escape. Spiders could be whoever you wanted them to be. So she convinced herself that she had wanted to be a spider from the very beginning. She spun countless webs of her own and pretended that the first one she had been caught in had been hers all along.

Natalia says, "Okay. What would you like me to do?"

Inga smiles evasively. It is a look that Natalia knows so well, but her stomach stirs when she sees it on the little girl's face.

Inga says, "I want you to choose. The first variation that comes into your head, just do it. Whatever it is, do it. Surprise me. _Perform_ for me, Natuska."

Slowly, Natalia finishes sewing the ribbons into her recently-broken in pointe shoes. Looking at Inga with another one of her practice smiles, Natalia says, "Can I do some barre work first?"

Extravagantly, Inga sweeps her arms toward the walls. "Of course. Pick a costume too!"

Natalia rolls her eyes and is chased to the barre by Inga's ringing laughter.

"I'm serious," says Inga. "Really put on a show for me."

To humor the girl, Natalia fishes out a long blue tulle skirt and steps into it. Inga covers her mouth with a hand. Mirrored versions of the two of them duplicate their motions.

At the barre, Natalia lets her spine stretch out. This isn't just a barre exercise, not just a warm-up. This is the beginning of a _performance. _And that means Natalia must summon a character to play. Not for the first time, nothing rises to the surface when she reaches for a new face. Even Natuska evades her. Natalia keeps searching for someone — _anyone _— to be.

Without thought, Natalia's body adjusts itself. The posture is so natural to her that it feels wrong that she hadn't been maintaining it before now. The sheer proximity of the barre seems to activate a conditioned response in her. Shoulders down, neck long, ribs in, tail tucked in, chin up. A roll of her head sends out a wave of cracks. Inga's gaze is feels tangible. Natalia can feel her eyes tracking every single movement, looking for something Natalia doesn't have the capacity to produce.

The scrutiny doesn't faze Natalia. She is too accustomed to living under a watchful eye. Inga's gaze is nothing, a butterfly fifty kilometers away. Negligible. When she was a spider newly minted, those gazes used to unnerve her. Their weight was something that might as well have been physical. You will always feel that way, they said, when you are fooling people. They will look at you. When things get tough, they might suspect you. They will look for in you the reason why everything has gone so wrong. And so all of the spiders were taught to feel the weight of observers but never to acknowledge them. It was important to know that someone was cottoning on to the ruse, but it was just as important not to act any differently because of it. Modification of behavior was a death sentence after someone else started watching.

And then an identity floats to the surface. Natalia isn't sure if she remembers all of the steps, but she has always been a good improviser. She finishes up at the barre, ties up her pointe shoes, and heads to the corner of the studio where they keep the stereo. (The bullet-riddled player piano since removed.) As she searches for the right music, Natalia can still feel Inga studying her the way a baby spider would. Natalia hates it. Inga doesn't not belong with spiders.

When the music is set, Natalia tosses the remote control to Inga. "Would you start it when I ask?" she says.

Inga catches the remote two-handed. "Of course," she says, and she scoots on her butt until her back is pressed against the mirror.

Inga and her mirror-self watch Natalia. Mirror-Natalia watches Natalia. Off to the side, she nods her head to the little girl and the music starts.

When she first started practicing ballet, it was because of the flexibility and athleticism it developed in a person. This was the widow-maker's idea. What a convenient front ballet would make too, he must have thought. All of these baby spiders in his web, and he must have figured all of them had dreamed of being ballerinas one day. All young Russian girls did. That was where all the spiders started their training: at the barre. It was just flexibility at first. But before long it was purposefully and willfully dislocating joints and then rolling them back in. Over and over again until the pain was familiar.

That was always the way of pain for Natalia. It doesn't lessen with repetition, but you could come to expect it. For some reason, that expectation was what made all of the difference. When she knew it was coming, it wasn't that bad. She could prepare. It still hurt, but it's a hurt like a memory of something lost. Pain was the brain warning her that something was wrong with her body. But it was always reduced when the bones slid back into their sockets. She taught her brain not to worry when her joints fled their sockets.

_They always come back_. _No need to worry._

The music begins and Natalia is someone else. She is young and stupid and in love. She is a shy girl floating on foolish dreams. She is weak of heart and gentle of soul. She is doomed from the start, bound to be killed by the very thing that she seeks. Natalia dances the part of a girl giddy with love's first touch. She dances the part of a girl that protects the thing that killed her — the thing that lied to her from the start. Natalia is light and she is innocent. Later, this girl will die, but for now she is high on hopes and dreams for a love that she doesn't know won't survive yet.

The piece is short. She forgets a few steps, but no one would know the difference anyway. Improvising at its finest. Inga doesn't clap or smile or laugh like she did all the other times that Natalia danced for her. Instead she just looks curious. Confused.

"That was from _Giselle_, wasn't it?" says Inga.

"It was," says Natalia.

"Mmh."

"Am I a letdown?" Natalia teases. "Did all of my talk about dancing with the Bolshoi make you think that I would be better?"

Inga shakes her head. "No. It was beautiful. It's just that it wasn't you."

_And what would you know about me, little girl? What do you know about spiders and faceless characters, little girl? What do you know about being caught in a web, little girl with a name?_

"Of course not," says Natalia, sounding more and more like Natuska now that her performance is over. "I was Giselle."

Inga shakes her head again. "You're different. You danced _Giselle_ but you weren't you."

_I was being you._

Inga opens her mouth to elaborate, but the transceiver in Natalia's ear, which has been buzzing with the words of those near her bugs all day, delivers to her information that captures her interest. It stops her heart for a split second.

"_It's the girl. The nanny,_" a voice says in her ear.

"_What about Natuska? She's been excellent with Inga. Is something wrong with her? Does she need help? Is she still upset about what happened?_" That is no doubt Nemchinov's voice.

Whatever Inga was saying is over and the girl is looking at her expectantly, waiting for a reply. Natalia looks to her with Natuska's face. The girl notices the difference. Natuska hasn't been conjured when it's just the two of them for a long time. Natalia has modified her behavior with someone watching.

The voice in her ear says, "_None of that. She's the _cause_ of it. The nanny is the rat._"

Nemchinov: "_That's ridiculous. She defended Inga. She wouldn't order a hit on the only thing keeping her here._"

"_The girl isn't the nanny's target, sir. _You_ are her target. She's trying to take _you_ down. Think off all the shit that's been raining on your head since she turned up._"

"_Happenstance." _

_ "You must believe me, sir. Natuska is the rat. She's the reason everything is coming apart at the seams. She killed Khomich's daughter and tore up our peace with him. She blew up his factory. She ruined our connection with Kozlov; got the poor guy arrested. Your stupid nanny is the reason Khomich sent an assassin after your girl in the first place. She disappeared last month and a few days later, one of our suppliers is completely, wholly busted? If this doesn't convince you, look at the security. I went back when I started suspecting this, and things definitely go funny just a _day_ after she moved in."_

_ "You're making mountains out of molehills. You're only seeing these things because you want them to be there." _

_ "What is this? Sir, there's a bug on you _right now_! Look!"_

"Natuska?"

Inga's voice makes Natalia jump. Her mind is racing to make sense of it all. She didn't know the voice of the man ratting her out. She didn't know how he found out. And that made her more nervous than anything else. She looks to the little girl beside her with big eyes.

_He'll believe it. Maybe not at first, but Nemchinov will believe it. It's over. _

"Is something wrong?" says Inga.

"Yes."

"What is it? Are we safe?"

"I have to leave."

"_What_?" Inga says shrilly. A most inconvenient volume.

"I have to leave. Inga, you know why. You _know_. You suspect it at least. I have to go."

"Wait!" She throws out her hands to stop Natalia from escaping like a thief in the night.

But Natalia is more than a thief in the night. She is a spider with the training of a ghost. Just before she leaves the little girl's earshot, Natalia whispers, "I'll come back. No need to worry."


	12. The Nutcracker

_December - Two Months Earlier_

She makes it as far as downtown on foot before she stops. It takes only a few seconds to scoop up a few coins from a homeless man's Styrofoam cup. The coins do not jingle as she walks. Nothing makes a sounds when Natalia walks. Another five blocks and she finds a payphone. Down the slot and buttons pressed with fingers shaking with cold. The snow is deep and she hasn't the appropriate clothes. Easy to obtain. Not so easy to get started.

"It's been a long time," the voice on the other side of the phone says.

"My position has been compromised," she says.

"You don't say."

Somehow, her shaking fingers don't feel cold at all anymore.

_Protect_, a calm part of her suggests.

"Explain."

The voice on the other end says, "It has been a long time. You have not been responding when we attempt to contact you."

"I was working."

"Working. Indeed."

"You have more people in his ranks."

"Quite so."

"You blew my cover on purpose."

"You are everything they advertised, aren't you?"

Natalia feels her stomach acid slosh around inside her.

_Protect._

She says, "You haven't aborted the mission."

"No. We have a car on the way to your location. Come back here and we will discuss how the plans have changed."

There is no further exchange. Natalia and her employer hang up at the same time. Her fingers begin to itch in anticipation. Stomach calling for her to _protect_, Natalia gets walking again. She makes it three times around the block before she stops and enters the car that has been trailing her.

* * *

It is late in December and she still hasn't left her employer's custody. By choice, of course. Spiders are particularly adept at escaping. That new voice that lives in her stomach and pushes on her ribs is upset with her the entire time.

It is Christmas and she hasn't seen Inga in ages. Not once did her stomach stop telling her that she was in the wrong place and that she needed to protect the stupid girl. Natalia's ears ache to hear the swell of a cello again. She finds her fingers plinking phantom tunes on the mirage of piano keys. Her posture straightens when the sun sinks low in the sky — _it's time to dance! Stretch your feet!_

Natalia Romanova misses the routine.

Natalia Romanova misses _Inga_'s routine.

Natalia Romanova misses Inga.

Natalia Romanova misses.

For once, the sensation doesn't bother her. The emotion is real and unlike anything Natalia has ever felt in a long time. When she realizes that she cares for the girl — perhaps loves the girl — she feels stronger. Natalia imagines there is a compass needle in her chest that was spinning and spinning all these years and has at last come to rest, pointing her in a definitive direction. It points her toward Inga and tells her to protect.

It's Christmas and they finally have a plan.

After Natuska fled the Nemchinov mansion, the men had scoured the house and destroyed everything in the nanny's quarters. Anything connected to Natuska Shostakova is erased from existence. New security is brought in to secure the grounds. It just so happens that the security is tainted with more men employed by the same agency as Natalia Romanova. Though her employer wanted her to keep a low profile and stay completely out of sight while Nemchinov stretches his terrorist reach as far as he can to find her, Natalia was not the kind to play it safe.

Nearly a year with Nemchinov allowed her to accurately anticipate his moves. When he brought in new people to arm the house with alarms, she moved some of her co-workers in with them. And so the great Nemchinov estate was rigged to the gills with explosives. With the push of a button, the whole thing would combust. The plan: When Nemchinov calls a meeting with Khomich to discuss with him the nuisance that has been causing all of their mutual grief — and this _would_ happen, she was sure of it — they would blow the house to smithereens. All of them in one fell swoop.

Just as she had known, another of her employer's rats scurries to the base where Natalia is sequestered to inform them that a date had been set at the end of January for Khomich and Nemchinov to meet. There is now a mark on the calendar for the end of the job.

It is a simple plan. A plan that Natalia likes save for one detail: Inga. The girl _could not_ be anywhere near her home when this happened. Natalia wouldn't allow it. But she has it on good intel that Nemchinov is not even letting his daughter out of the house. He fears the bond that Inga has formed with her rat of a caretaker. She is under strict lock and key. The baron will not let her out of his sight until the redheaded demon is caught.

Natalia has more faith in Inga than the girl's own father seems to have.

Natalia comes up with a plan.

She stalks the Nemchinov grounds at a distance for two days. Her employer never asks where she goes — confident by now that the spider can wander without getting caught. Besides, it's not as if they couldn't complete their mission if Natalia were to come to an unfortunate end at this point. She watches the guards and studies the plans that the men who laid the charges had drawn out. Outright asking the engineers to tell her about the new security was out of the question. No one could know what she planned. By all means it was the deepest weakness; proof that their hired spider has been corrupted.

On 31 December, the eve of a new year, Natalia Romanova hops, skips, and jumps her way through the new security — still terrible but much improved — scales the side of the mansion, and enters Inga Nemchinova's room by way of the bay window. On spider's feet she approaches the little girl's bed. The shouts of drunk and happy men echo from downstairs, far louder than any sound Natalia would produce.

Sitting down slowly on the edge of Inga's bed, Natalia reaches out a hand and strokes the young girl's hair. She wonders how she ever thought Inga to be less than absolute beauty. Those deeply, closely set eyes are so big when she's excited; they more than balance out the negative space. In her round face, Inga has immaculate skin. That chin that is so prominent promises strength, an unbowed back. The cheeks that curve straight into her elegant, long neck . . . Natalia almost forgets why having a jawline is considered desirable.

_She will be a dancer_, Natalia decides.

She says, "Inga. Inga, please wake up."

The girl comes awake slowly. She groans and rolls away from Natalia a few times before she recognizes the voice. Then, she turns and sits up all in one motion —

_Admirable._

— and looks at Natalia with tears in her eyes.

"You're here," she says on light breath. "I never thought I'd see you again."

"I told you I'd come back. I told you there was no need to worry."

"Father is furious with you. I feared he'd found you and killed you without telling me; he was trying to spare my feelings."

Natalia holds back a smile when she hears the eye roll in Inga's voice. So young and she already knows that she's better than her father. The idea of him being able to outwit her and spare her feels is laughable to both of them.

"I'll always come back."

"What's happening?"

So smart. So much smarter than Natalia ever gave her credit for.

"You know what I am," Natalia says.

"Yes," Inga says.

"Do you want to come with me?"

Inga's eyes shine in the dark. She knows what Natalia is asking of her. She knows as she has always known. She knows because she has been playing Natalia as much as Natalia has been playing her from the moment they met. They both knew it and neither of them ever tried to put a stop to it.

Inga says, "Yes."

Natalia's stomach ties itself in a knot that is not uncomfortable.

"You must get out of the house on 30 January."

"That's the day before _The Firebird_."

"I know. You must convince your father that you _have _to go to this performance. Do whatever it takes. Agree to have a protective detail with you. You must do anything you can to get him to let you out of the house."

"I don't know if I can. He is furious with you. He fears you will capture me and use me to blackmail him."

"Inga, you _must_ do this. You must get out of the house. Tell him that it will be safer for you when all of his guests arrive. Remind him that Khomich is the man who sent an assassin after you. Their peace is tenuous at best. He will understand that you are afraid to be under the same roof as him. He might let you out of the house in case there is an uneven score Khomich wants to settle."

"I will do whatever I can," Inga says with doubt.

"You must do this," Natalia says. "You _must_. I cannot protect you if you don't get out."

Inga says, "I won't be here. I promise," and Natalia almost believes it.

Pushing her hand through the girl's sleep-tangled hair, Natalia says, "I am very fond of you, Inga Nemchinova."

There are tears threatening to spill down the girl's cheeks, but they stay in her eyes. It is the assassin all over again. A firearm's discharge renting the air and everything becoming real for Inga all at once. The taking of her first life. It won't ever happen again. Natalia thinks of all of the ghosts that follow her wherever she goes.

Inga leans forward until her arms are locked around Natalia's neck. She doesn't say a word and she doesn't cry.

"You are a beautiful dancer, Inga Nemchinova," says Natalia Romanova.

The small arms around her tighten. A shuddering breath under her hands.

"You are so smart and kind. You are so, so strong, Inga Nemchinova," says she.

Little hands clinging on to her. Little hands holding on to something they thought they lost forever a long time ago. Little hands clamped tight around something because it is always so fleeting, because it is sure to end soon.

Natalia feels as if she's drowning. Her stomach is silent, the voice gone. Her cracked parts ache to be put back together, to be closed and hard once more.

"Inga Nemchinova," she whispers into the little girl's hair. _The girl with a name._


	13. The Firebird

The first act of any performance, assuming there is more than one act, is all about exposition, about background. It presents to the audience the cast of characters. Themes are introduced — _pay attention now because all of this will have an important bearing on how this turns out in the end. _It carefully and precisely lays out the plot and reveals what the main conflict will be. The first act is the foundation on which the story is built. The characters are shown first to the audience, so that the viewers may get some sense of who they are going on a journey with, who they are going to hear a story about.

And then the characters meet each other. They fall in love — not always, but usually. Because really, what is more powerful, more relatable than loving someone? The audience gets to see how these characters that they have just met will handle this love. Is it forbidden? Is it true? Can it stand the test that the rising conflict is sure to put it through? The plot is just going, the action is just barely rising. And then something terrible, something catastrophic happens. The audience is left to wonder what could possibly happen now. How can we come back from here? How can these characters we have just met but already love possibly reconcile this disaster?

Just as the audience begins to wonder these things, the curtain closes on the first act. There is an intermission. Soon enough, though, the curtain is rising on the second act — the good part, the part of the story that shows us how that tragedy in the first act has changed the characters — how it has set them on a new path.

The curtain opens on the second act.

And then true story begins.

* * *

_January - One Month Earlier_

For nearly every week preceding 30 January, Natalia Romanova sneaks out of her employer's base of operations and goes to Inga Nemchinova. She feels better when she is there, when she can see and touch Inga whenever her roiling stomach demands confirmation that the girl with the name still exists. And it does this often. Every single morning when Natalia opens her eyes (not when she wakes up, because sleep has always been elusive for spiders) her stomach is always churning and worrying a hole in her gut. It wants to know that Inga is safe, that Inga is alive. It wants to be absolutely certain that Inga Nemchinova will come to no harm.

Each night she wakes the girl up, Natalia says, _Has he agreed?_

And each night Inga says, _Not yet. Soon. I've almost worn him down._

It is not good enough. Both of them know it is not good enough. Both of them know that it will never _be_ enough no matter how much time they had to convince the baron. They both know but they never speak of it. Natalia's brain hurls desperate contingency plans to her stomach in attempt to assuage it. Nothing works. Nothing _will_ work, she knows. Her stomach knows too, but it doesn't give up. So neither does the rest of Natalia.

* * *

_29 January – One Day Earlier_

Natalia sits on the edge of Inga Nemchinova's bed. The girl is already awake — perhaps she had never gone to sleep.

"Has he agreed?" asks Natalia, knowing the answer but asking and hoping anyway.

"Not yet. But I'll get out. I promise you, Natuska. If I have to jump from my window, I will get out."

They smile at each other. Natalia smiles at the face that never could have been. Natalia smiles at the face she wanted to be.

"I know you will, dear heart," she says with a woman's voice and not the silkiness of a spider's thread. "Tell me the plan again. Recite it for me so I know you won't forget."

Inga smiles almost as convincingly as Natuska used to smile when she first came to the mansion.

Inga says, "I will have my father send me with a security detail to a hotel tomorrow. I'll bring the music box with _The Firebird_ tickets inside. The next day, the day of the performance, I'll go into the theatre with one of my guards. I'll watch the ballet. When the performance is over, but before all of the dancers take a bow, I will tell my guard that I have to use the washroom — It will be an emergency; I've been holding for most of the show. I will run before he has a chance to respond. You will intercept me in the hall and we will leave together. You'll have transport waiting and we'll leave the country together. They'll find a body later and think me dead. They won't look for me anymore. We'll never come back and we'll be very happy."

"Yes. That's right," says Natalia. "That's all right. That's what we'll do."

Inga says, "I had a dream last night."

Natalia cannot stop her face from crumpling along the sides. "What did you dream, Inga Nemchinova?"

"I dreamed I was a princess. I was locked away in a glass tower by an evil sorcerer. All around us was forest — endless forest. I tried everything I could to get away, and I hated the sorcerer so much. Every time I tried to escape, he would capture me and punish me. All I wanted to do was break the glass and escape to the forest. It was so close, the forest. The branches of the tress pressed their leaves right up against the glass. Instead of trying to escape, I set a trap and killed the sorcerer. But I didn't feel any better. I was still trapped, still a prisoner even after my gaoler was gone.

"But then I saw a bird. It told me that it could break the glass for me but that there was a good chance that I would die. I told the bird that I had to try. And the bird pecked at the glass until it shattered. Shards of glass fell on me. But just for that moment, I was free. I had achieved what I'd always wanted, what I'd only been able to look at from this side of the glass, if only for a second. And it was enough. And it was worth it."

Natalia does not try to stop her face from crumpling in on itself this time. "Inga Nemchinova," she says. And she says it again and again and again. She says it until the words sound strange in her ears, until she doesn't know which syllables go with which part of her name. Natalia Romanova says the little girl's name over and over again so that she'll never forget.

And when she's at the window ready to depart, Inga says, "Will you answer me one question?"

And Natalia says, "If I am able," because she knows better than to agree to something before she knows the finer details.

"What is your name?" says Inga.

And Natalia Romanova says, "I'll let you know when I find out," and then she is gone. That is the second-to-last exchange between the spider and the girl.

* * *

_30 January – Two Hours Earlier_

She waits impatiently when the day of the performance is upon her. Inga should be out of the mansion today — far and away preparing to see the Bolshoi Ballet perform _The Firebird_. Nemchinov may claim to love that little girl, but he does not deserve her. He will ruin her. He has already begun —c racks in the little girl's foundation, blood forced unwillingly onto her hands.

Ilya Nemchinov does not know what spiders are, but he will turn his own daughter into one. There is no going back after that. Once Inga's name is forfeit, it cannot be reclaimed.

So this is really the only way. Natalia will achieve her last missions and then she and the little girl will run away and keep their names. She can go straight. Inga gave back to Natalia what she thought she'd lost. Though her name will never come back and her identity will remain scattered in thousands of different characters, she has been given her conscience back. Her compass has stopped spinning and found a direction with which it may reference all others. And it is all because of a stupid little girl.

No, not stupid. Never, ever stupid. Smart. Smarter than Natalia. Inga is everything Natalia could have been. She is what Natalia still wishes she could be. Nemchinov cannot ruin this girl. Natalia will not let him throw her from the inferno that his life has become into a web. There's no getting out of that web. Natalia will catch Inga when her father throws her. She will free Inga from any webs because Natalia is a spider already and knows how to destroy just as well as she knows how to spin.

Her thoughts are chasing each other like this when her employer calls her to his office.

"Almost done," he says while tapping his watch.

"I know," says Natalia.

"Set to blow in fifteen minutes," he says.

"I know," says Natalia.

"I want you at the scene after it blows. Leave now. You should get there in time for most of the smoke to clear but not before any forces show up."

"You own those forces, don't you?" she asks while already knowing the answer. If any police see her there, they will shrug.

Her employer rolls his eyes. "Yes. But it's easier to hide when there's not some mad woman running around the scene. I don't own the _entire_ system, you know."

Natalia nods her head and concedes that he is right on this account.

"Make sure they're all dead. Everything. I don't care if it's a cat, a goldfish, a squirrel, or a kid. If it's there and it's breathing, kill it."

Without thinking for even an instant, Natalia's hand strikes out and smacks the man across the face. He opens his mouth to say more, but he is dead. The cracking of glass, the kiss of air as a projectile zings through the air — missing her by a mere millimeter. Blood on the walls and he is dead. Natalia whirls to face the cracked window. The hole is perfectly round with only the smallest of cracks creeping out from the puncture. On a building a little taller than her employer's, she sees a purple blur disappear so quickly she can't be sure she even truly saw it.

When she faces her dead employer again, the shaft of an arrow bounces like a cantilever beam, the arrowhead buried deep and fixed in the man's forehead. Natalia Romanova doesn't know what this means, but she flees. She runs from the room, a name on her lips, a ghost on her heels.

* * *

_Several Months Later _

Natalia Romanova is dancing. She has been for several days, for her entire life. When she hears a tinny sound singing from behind her, her breath stills in her lungs. It could be a siren's song the way it makes her feet cease their weary motion. It tinkles in the air, tells her a story that she didn't get to hear the end of. She wants to follow it, find out where it comes from and where it can take her. Natalia Romanova hears music freed, at last, from its box. When she turns toward the sound, she comes face-to-face with an archer staring down the length of an arrow at her. Her lungs push hard against her chest and she counts.

_One, two, three, four, five, six._

He lowers his bow.

And just like that, Natalia Romanova's first act is over.

* * *

**Credits, etc.:**

**Natalia Romanova, also known as Natasha Romanoff, also known as Black Widow, is obviously not my character. Same goes for Hawkeye's cameo and the ghost references to the Winter Soldier (though neither character was referenced by name).**

**All last names and a lot of the first names of the OCs were chosen and/or mixed and matched off of a list of professional Russian hockey players. Nothing in this story is meant to reflect attitudes towards a player, personalities of a player, or personal opinions of any of the players on which a character's name was derived. **

**All chapter titles are named after various ballets with two exceptions. Chapter 1: Overture is meant to be exactly that, an overture. Chapter 5: The Red Shoes takes it title from the British film of the same name. (_The Red Shoes_ is also a fairy tale written by Hans Christian Andersen.)**

**Thanks to all who reviewed, followed, favorited, and even those who lurked. I really, really appreciate you taking the time to read this!**


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